> Nucor's Counterattack > by Matthew Stone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Zom-Pony Attack, Parts 1 & 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The horror is only beginning in Fillydelphia, when the royal guards finally arrive to help the city police stop the green skinned zombie ponies. They set up a metal wall made with bronze and silver, assuming it’s the zombies’ weakness compared from what may have been used in the previous vampire attacks. Citizens ran far from the barrier as fast as they can, as instructed by the police officers. The royal guards fought well with their crossbows to have the slow movie zombies back away slowly, but it doesn’t make them stop. The zombies also chant the word “CELESTIA” with their bare teeth. At that time, they began banging on the barrier wall, and climbing over it. The royal guards are losing this battle. Nucor looks over at the horizon of the barrier shield, having his zombies pull him on a boned chariot. He’s wearing skeleton armor that’s colored charcoal grey, and he’s already holding a sharpened bone axe for his fighting weapon. “HAHAHAHA! YOU FOOLS! YOU WILL SOON BECOME ONE OF MINE!” Nucor laughs like a ill menace, “ZOMBIES, BITE AWAY! BITE! FEAST YOURSELVES AND ENJOY!” The zombies push over the royal guards, having them crack their bones as they fall from the wall. As the zombies land, they charge at their first targeted victims that catch their eye. One pony they start with is a teen female pegasi, who tries to run away from them, but gets caught by the leg and pulled back to be theirs. They then bite at her skin, having her scream and moan as she falls weak. Foam then bleeds out her mouth, as her eyes grow pale. It’s the call of turning into the undead pony. As Nucor watches, the zombie ponies also pull a cage on a skeleton wagon. Nucor approaches to see the victim inside. It’s a female zombie pegasi, and her cutie mark is a Nazi symbol with a skull in front. “I’m glad you’re coming with…” Nucor laughs, “Skull will love to see you… his own MOTHER!” The victim in the prison cage just moans, as she nods in understanding. There was a first guard block already set up near the Fillydelphia train station, as more of the royal guards get the citizens on board without having them go in order. They just get all of them, every last one. By then, the guards order the conductor to take the citizens far away on the train. The guards even choose to be left behind, willing to fight as much of these monsters with their own lives. As the call is made, the train leaves, having the similar sound of a ringing bell initiate the battle of the zombies and guards at the barrier. The royal guards reload and constantly shoot their crossbow arrows, aiming the spear weapons at their brains. The arrows pierce through the skulls, having the pink think body pieces fly off out of their flesh property. “KEEP FIRING!” a guard captain yells at the other fighters. One earth pony cop even fights alongside with them, also left behind. He refuses to leave duty from the only city he ever cared about. “GO AWAY!” the cop yells, firing his shotgun at the zombies. The zombies ignore those cries, only coming at full force as they climb up THIS barrier. As they come over, they BITE the guards on the necks, some even bit directly at their hooves, front and back. Nucor then flies in the sky for his power for the first time, as he laughs at the royal guard ponies’ screaming of pain. “Fillydelphia is now my property!” Nucor laughs, “Now… Baltimare is next…” Ian the diamond dog is walking down from Sugarcube Corner wit Pinkie Pie to take a special cake they made together to Canterlot, made for Twilight’s wedding. It is colored white and pink for the frosting, and the flavor they made it is devil’s chocolate. The two of them walk slowly, making sure the cake doesn’t tip over as they reach the train station. “I hope Twilight loves this.” Ian beams. “Flash will make a great groom!” Pinkie said, hopping, “But I should guess Twilight might get into a… teenie weenie love triangle scenario.” “What do you mean?” Ian asks. Pinkie Pie stops hopping, being serious as she looks at Ian carrying the cake. “I overheard her saying things about wanting to be with Tails more the other day.” Pinkie admits, “But the choice of Flash to her almost felt like it was to prepare herself to protect everypony in Equestria. If she followed Sombra’s falsely warning as a prophecy, she might know how to handle the peril based on what’s foretold. She’s just torn apart from her two lovers.” “I’m sure she’ll figure something out.” Ian promises. “Wait, what’s going on over there?” Pinkie gasps, pointing at the pandemonium starting at the train station. She can see all the citizens coming out of the trains real fast in the distance, observing the panic in their eyes. Royal guards and doctors also arrive the moment she and Ian enters the station building. It took them only a few minutes to walk into the station, and both of them weren’t expecting this at all. They can also see doctors and nurses guiding the citizens out of the building, saying that they’ll take them to the nearest hospital to make sure they’re not infected. Pinkie Pie then turns around to see that Celestia and Luna are here, and the two princesses are talking with the royal guards to plan out their strategy for the upcoming attacks. Luna has her eyes glow, as she senses the zombies’ next moves. Pinkie and Ian then walk up to Celestia, surprising her. Ian even sets the cake down and puts it to the side of the wall. “What’s going on?” Pinkie Pie asks. “The best way to put it…” Celestia huffs, “A demonic zombie attack. And it’s heading toward here.” Ian and Pinkie raise their eyes. “Zombies?” Ian sighs, “Impossible.” “I thought so too.” Celestia admits, “But from a dream of vision I had. it might happen. I also know that… Nucor is coming for us. Skull’s father.” “The bad kind?” Ian asks. “So Sombra was telling the truth in a bad way before he got sent to Tatarus?” Pinkie gasps. Celestia nods and then looks at her sister. “How far are those creatures?” she asks. “They’re at least twenty miles away, and they’re going fast towards Ponyville.” Luna tells her, “And they heavily armed.” “Then we have to relocate the citizens in the station. Some will have to be brought back here by my decree.” Celestia said, “We should move them into the Crystal Empire. The crystal heart containing the kingdom’s magic can hold the zombies out.” “But we must defend Canterlot first.” Luna points out, “I suggest we contact Queen Chrysalis to come to our aid, even though she might be reluctant. Shining Armor and Cadence also let me know that they’re sending their troops to defend Ponyville.” “Is there anything we can do to help? Pinkie offers to them. “You can find Rainbow Dash and Fireblaze. They know about planning fighting moves.” Luna recommends, “Discord, Fluttershy, and Skull are already finding the others to get ready.” “Right.” Ian nods. As the princesses continue their planning, Pinkie and Ian run out of the station to find Rainbow and Fireblaze. Rainbow Dash is having flying training with Fireblaze as her instructor in the sky. The dragon pony makes cloud circles for her to fly through, along with making thunder bolts in clouds as her obstacles to pass by. He even has a timer to record how fast she can make her pass through all the twenty circle hoops he made. She went REALLY fast. As she finished, he recorded… “JUST ONE MINUTE!” Fireblaze cheers. “WOOO! I’m awesome!” Rainbow Dash howls in joy. “Now don’t go too far.” Fireblaze joke around. “We should go hang out with Pinkie Pie to celebrate!” Rainbow Dash said, “She’ll make us nice rainbow cupcakes!” “Well, we do need a rest.” Fireblaze nods. As they land onto the ground, it was just by coincidence that Pinkie and Ian run into them near the tree library that Twilight used to own. The two romantic ponies were just flying above it when they were doing their training. “Hey Pinkie.” Rainbow smiles, “You think we can make…” “NO TIME FOR CUPCAKES!” Pinkie wails, “ZOMBIES ARE COMING!” Rainbow and Fireblaze looked confused. “Princess Celestia told us that she’s sensing this town will be invaded.” Ian adds, “She also said something about… NUCOR coming back.” “Nucor…” Fireblaze mumbles in concern. He then gets serious. “I’ll find Garble and his dragon army, then I’ll go to the Griffon Kingdom to inform Storm about this!” Fireblaze plans out. “We need everypony we can get to against the zombie army!” Rainbow declares. The four of them then split up, ready to start their tasks. Discord, Fluttershy, and Skull arrived just in time to drag both Twilight and Spike out of her castle. She struggles in Discord’s grip, wondering what’s going on. “FLUTTERSHY! SKULL! Are you actually approving of Discord surprising me like that?” Twilight demands. “NUCOR IS COMING!” Discord shouts at her. “W…What?” Twilight gasps. “Discord told me and Skull everything.” Fluttershy whimpers at her, “Celestia has had a vision of him invading Ponyville today!” “My father…” Skull begins to shudder. Twilight understood. Just then, Flash walks up dressed in his tuxedo, ready to hang out with Twilight. Yet, he’s in deep surprise to see that Discord, Fluttershy, and Skull are carrying her out of the building. He’s also more surprised to see Tails and TJ acting casual as they arrive toward them. Tails was in much surprise when he sees Flash as well. The groom pony looks concerned, when he sees a box of chocolates made for Twilight, just directly from Tails himself. “That’s…. nice of you to think of Twilight so fondly.” he said to the fox. Tails nods in thanks, as he looks around at the gang when he just arrived. He was going to try and gain Twilight’s affections some more, but now this. Even TJ is confused. “What’s going on?” TJ asks. “Nucor is coming back.” Fluttershy whispers. “Nucor?” Tails asks. “Celestia has told me she’ll prepare a war tent for us to figure out a way to stop him.” Discord adds. “Then we better go meet with her.” Twilight said, as she releases herself from Discord’s protecting grip. As Twilight leads Discord, Fluttershy, Skull, Tails, and TJ towards Celestia’s direction, Flash looks at Tails, following them slowly while wondering. “Tails must love Twilight just as much as I do.” he thinks in his head, “Looks like I have a rival.” Spike walks besides Flash, then burping out a message scroll by shock. He then opens the scroll and reads the message. “It’s from Blade.” Spike tells Flash, “He’s already checking for survivors in Fillydelphia after Nucor and his minions left. He’s also having Coco check with him. Right now they found twenty survivors, none of them are bitten or infected.” “Let’s hope NOPONY gets infected.” Flash sighs. In the war tent set up near the train station, all of the main six ponies are there, along with the foxes, Flash, Spike, Discord, Luna, Celestia, Cadence, Ian, and Skull. The rest such as Leo couldn’t make it, and Ian doesn’t know why. However, he’s more focused on the map like all the other ponies. And there is already a crossed X marked on the attacked city of Fillydelphia. “Baltimare is coming to be the next target for Nucor instead.” Celestia thinks out loud, “Though it doesn’t mean Ponyville is safe. He may call his zombie minions to split up in half of hundreds, ready to attack without us noticing. They might head here in a couple hours or less. My guards are already creating a barrier near the train station too.” “The other thing to plan out is, how to make it out alive.” Luna adds, “In case anything goes wrong.” Spike coughs up another message scroll. Since Fireblaze has gone to the Griffon Kingdom, he promised to send an update of Storm’s strategy. This is what Spike reads out loud. “Fireblaze wrote down that Storm is having his griffon forces already evacuating the citizens to Manehattan and the Crystal Empire. Crystal Forces are evacuating half the citizens from Baltimare to Canterlot too, just so they won’t be involved in the attacks safely. There’s no word from Chrysalis or Fluffle yet, though the griffon armies are setting metal barriers around the Hollow Woods to Vanhoover.” Spike reads. “Let’s hope everything works out okay then.” Discord sighs. It was like nighttime in the sky, as the smoldering smoke covers the light blur hues. Buildings burn as the zombies attack Baltimare in no time at all, having the remaining pony citizens scream and running towards the guarded railway station to make their escape. The royal guards initiate a barrier to be built as usual, as they have the city police force fire at the running undead to distract them, slowing them down by aiming at their kneecaps. “Keep the zombies back!” one of the royal guards instructs to them. “Is there anypony else you’re missing?” the police chief asks one of the royal guards. “Well, Cheese Sandwich was here… throwing a party for the mayor…” the guard answers, thinking. His eyes then widen. “DAMN! He’s still out there!” the royal guard suddenly shouts. “MEN! Get out there and find him!” the chief tells his troops, “If you see anypony else who’s alive, protect them too!” “ON IT!” the officers nod, running into action. The keep shooting at the zombies to make a safe path when increasing their speed. The fire expands behind them as if a stunt show is being performed. Inside the mayor’s home of Baltimare, the bodyguards are shooting their automatic crossbow machines at the zombies over a high barrier wall surrounding the house. To make their luck less easy, the zombies have their minds formulate claws into the bottom of their hooves, as they dog them in the walls to climb upward. The bodyguards keep shooting, but some are jumped upon as the zombies reach the top. Down below, the police force arrive, yet half of them are taken down and feasted upon by the zombies in such unfair movement. In the house, the bodyguards head inside to plan out more ways to defend this zone. Trotting behind them is Cheese Sandwich, dressed in some dead puppet outfit fit for the occasion. He carries a piñata bat for his weapon, in case the zombies come in. Behind him, the citizens are cowering on the stairway steps. There are at least twenty of them, all including the mayor. They look at Cheese, depending on him of what needs to come next. “There are some officers armed to the bone out there.” Cheese Sandwich tells the group, “On my signal, we spring out.” The group is nervous, but they nod, knowing it’s the only way. They definitely don’t want to be trapped for very long. At Cheese’s signal, he makes a Spanish cheer as they follow him out of the house and through the wall gate. Cheese Sandwich than swings his bat around, attacking the zombies while he jumps away from their swinging claws and biting fangs. He nods at the arrived officers who are remaining, and they lead him and his group through the pathway as they keep shooting their pistols towards more undead hellions. As they near the train station, Nucor looks down below on the top of a skyscraper. He laughs at the sight of Cheese Sandwich. “Ah. He must be a friend of Pinkie Pie’s…” Nucor sighs. He then looks up, sending a telepathic message to his zombies. “Oh boys…” he telepathically sends, “Go after the party pony. Infect his ass.” As Cheese keeps running with the gang, he notices more of the zombies triggered to come at him by surprise. He then raises his bat to push and hit them back, cracking their ribs and tearing off their stinky limbs that start to rot. One pony he sees he’s fighting is a female pegasi. The female thrashes towards his chest, as he thrusts back when bunting the bat towards her front legs. Then… The zombie grabs his legs from behind just after she slithers under him. She then bites him, BITES HIM, down hard through the nerves of his neck! “ARRRRRGH!” Cheese Sandwich wails. He punches the pegasi in the jaw right after the bite, refusing to take any more damage then he fears he’ll get. He then looks to see that the police force have already guided the mayor and citizens to the station, where they are safe and ready to leave. However, Cheese is left behind. And there’s no doubt why. He’s going to be undead soon… He looks up again, seeing the griffon army flying into action as they prepare to challenge the zombies to a fight when they land. One looks down from the sky, and sees Cheese Sandwich, shuddering at the pain in his body. The griffon soldier gasps, and whooshes down to help Cheese to his hooves. “We have to get you out of here!” the griffon soldier offers. “No… I’m infected…” Cheese Sandwich, “Though I have a favor to ask. When you see Pinkie Pie, tell her that her friends need to find a hidden bunker near the World’s End Waterfall. It’s just toward the very edge of the world of Equestria.” “How do you know of it?” the griffon asks. “Been there to know it…” Cheese Sandwich answers, “Just tell Pinkie.” “I will tell her…” the griffon sighs, “I’m sorry I can’t help you…” “You are helping!” Cheese assures him, “Now continue your job!” As the griffon flew away, Cheese began to feel cold. His heart became faint… weak…. evil…. EVIL! Cheese is now undead, and he’s under control of Nucor’s power! The leader then approaches in a fading flash, looking at his new slave. The zombie party pony than bows down to his master. “I will obey…” Cheese moans. “Good.” Nucor laughs. As Nucor looks around more, he howls to lead his troop towards the station, ready to claim more victims. The citizens were instructed to hide in a huge tent campus that’s built inside the barrier built around the near entrance to the Canterlot gates. Royal guards guide and list out every pony that came from Fillydelphia and Baltimare inside, as Twilight looks in fear at her fellow ponies and acquaintances in danger. She then turns around to see her friends, ready to fight by her side. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Skull, Blade, Fluttershy, Rarity, Spike, Discord, Ian, Leo, Tails, and TJ. The last friends to squirm up to the group while catching deep breaths is William, and he’s holding a sword. “Are you sure we’re prepared for this?” Applejack asks Twilight. “Ponyville will be under attack soon, it’s very clear that this is a call of war.” Twilight says, “What we have to do once the monsters get here is distract them, and lead them to another direction that will divert them from the evacuation camp. I’ve gotten word from Apple City, and Spike got message Braeburn has prepared a trap to stop the zombies.” “How far will Apple City be?” William asks. “Not too far than fifteen miles, just with built new buildings near the trail.” Twilight answers, “When they arrive in that evacuated area, we will give Nucor’s monsters what they deserve!” “RIGHT!” her friends yell out. Discord poofs into Celestia’s war tent to say one last goodbye to her before he enters a sacrificial fight that will protect his friends. He also notices Cadence and Shining Armor are there with them, talking about if there’s a possibility to cure these “zombies” and turn them back to normal. Yet, the four of them are unsure of that is even possible. “There has to be some sort of spell that’s in the infection. If so, it can be broken.” Celestia said. “But the risk we have to take is to bring a zombie HERE.” Luna cautions, “Doctors are going to have to dissect it if they want to find it’s weak point. “Um… are you sure that’s wise?” Discord asks, worried. “We will have tight security to restrain it once it gets here, there’s no need to worry on that part.” Cadence assures him. “Is there something else you wish to say Discord?” Celestia asks. “Well, I’m leaving with my friends for the mission. DO you think… Mokuba wants to join us?” Discord asks. “Mokuba…” Shining Armor realizes, “HE’S NOT HERE!” “He must still be on his date on top of the hill with Diamond Tiara!” Cadence whispers in fear. “Ah, the reformed brat.” Discord sighs, “Don’t worry, I’ll get them both.” “Discord, WAIT! It will be too…” Shining Armor tries to warn. Discord already left though, leaving Shining Armor in fear for him, and his son. “Discord is doing the right thing.” Cadence assures her husband, laying a hoof on his shoulder, “I really want our son to live through this….” Celestia lowers her head, praying that something will come to protect her friends. As Pinkie gathers her weapons, Rainbow Dash critiques which one would suit her to make her look tough. It was in the field close to the barrier, when Pinkie Pie flexes with different crossbows, including her party canon. “I… think the silver crossbow might work best.” Rainbow says to her. “Thanks Rainbow!” Pinkie cheers. Just then, the same griffon solider that saw Cheese Sandwich before approaches to Pinkie from behind. She turns to see him, along with Twilight walking up to see what’s going on. “Pinkie Pie, do you know Cheese Sandwich?” the griffon asks. “And how?” Pinkie answers. “I’m… sorry. Back in Baltimare, the city was attacked, and…. he just got bitten.” the griffon sadly says. Pinkie Pie’s smile lowers into a big frown real sad and depressed, as Twilight and Rainbow gasp. “You don’t mean…” Twilight stammers. “He gave a message though.” the griffon soldier continues, “There’s a bunker at a place called World’s End Waterfall, just near some cliff that’s higher then any mountain in Equestria…. maybe. He instructs you go there, in case anything goes wrong. But there might also be something there to help stop the attacks.” As Ian walks up to hear this too, Pinkie cries loud and wails out tears. The diamond dog hugs her for comfort, as Rainbow Dash shakes her head in disbelief. “Oh no… not Cheese….” Rainbow Dash moans. She then turns to see that Fireblaze has returned, guiding a group of dragon and griffon armies behind him. He’s dressed in gold armor, that’s molded from the hot lava of this earth. “Rainbow Dash…” Fireblaze tries to say. “I know…” Rainbow Dash calms down, wiping her tears, “We won’t lose anypony else again…” It was near the Everfree Forest, more likely at the very base, that Mokuba and Diamond Tiara set up a tiny quilt at the top of a hill. The view overlooks a high set of mountains that haven’t even been attacked yet. Nightfall is coming, and the two of them can already see a sunset sinking through the sky. Tiara loves how this first date is so far, and it’s been a month since Mokuba decided to ask her out. “I love being nice again.” Diamond Tiara admits. “Nice as the sunset maybe?” Mokuba smiles. “You make the best comparisons!” Tiara laughs. Mokuba chuckles too, leaning back on the blanket laid out. He sighs then, thinking of what to ask Diamond Tiara. “Tiara?” Mokuba starts, “Have you ever wondered what turning into an adult might feel like?” “Weird…” Tiara replies, “It’s probably the same for ANYPONY getting old.” “Also having more responsibilities.” Mokuba adds, “THAT will be a bore.” “Tell me.” Tiara agrees, “So, why ask?” “I just have trouble understanding if I have what it takes to be my father’s successor or heir to the Crystal Empire…” Mokuba said, “It’s lame, I know. I’m still so young though.” “Maturity can suck.” Tiara assures him. POOF! Mokuba and Diamond Tiara gasp to see who magically appeared in their view. Discord then hugs them in relief, glad that they’re safe. “OH, such innocent fillies!” Discord sighs in ease, “Did they get you?” “Did WHO get us?” Tiara demands. “There… there have been demonic attacks already at Fillydelphia and Baltimare.” Discord summarizes to them, “Mokuba, your parents are very worried about you. And… NUCOR… he’s returned…” Mokuba widens his eyes, understanding why Discord came to get him and Tiara. And Nucor, he learned about him from long ago. When King Kai, his pony mentor taught him about Nucor… he was known to be an overlord of the undead, a sadist madpony who plans to make a utopia fit for no living pony. “You think I should see Twilight first?” Mokuba finally asks, ready for another adventure. “We’ll go to her now! She’ll let Shining Armor know you’re safe!” Discord assures him. Mokuba nods, and the lord of chaos transports himself, the filly prince, and Tiara back to the safety camp where all their friends are. > Cosmos Strikes Back > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining Armor feels deep concern as he talks about the evacuation plan and infection issue with his wife and the princesses. The citizens are so pure and innocent. And… if it’s to survive… would they kill the zombies? Shining Armor flexes up his chest to ask the blunt question. “Celestia. Given the infections spreading around the citizens that turn them to the undead, is there no way to turn them back, or do we have to kill to survive?” he asks. “That is a very knowledgeable question.” Celestia said, “And given the strength of the spell, we may have to fight them, or own ponies. But… we won’t kill them.” Shining Armor smiles a little at this. “Given that, there IS a way to turn them back to normal.” Celestia assures, “But we need to find out what. It must be spell… something…” “We should do some research at the Crystal Empire library.” Luna suggests, “That’s something Twilight would do.” “We should find Zecora in the Everfree Forest too.” Celesta thinks out loud more, “If there’s a spell to create from the library books, she will guide us to create it.” Twilight goes into the tent, overhearing part of the conversation. She also acts tense, as she says once last thing to her before departing. “Celestia… Discord told me he just sensed a return of an old enemy.” the purple alicorn said, “He requests to transfer some of his chaotic magic to you and Luna so you’ll both protect yourselves.” “Is he here with you?” Celestia assumes. Discord poofs. “IS that fine?” he asks, “I’m sorry, but… I just want you to win any fight. This is a matter of life and death…” “That’s very noble of you.” Celestia smiles, “You request is granted.” Discord snaps his fingers, and a small spark goes inside Celestia and Luna. Some of his magic is now combining with their spells, though he feels drowsy. “I might not fight too well with half chaos.” he warns. “We’ll be fine.” Twilight said, putting her hoof on his paw, “We always work as a team, remember?” Discord smiles, as Twilight looks at Celestia. “These undead creatures can take infinite injuries.” Celestia cautions to Twilight, “They’ll keep attacking no matter what. So be careful.” “We will Celestia.” Twilight promises. The princesses then go out of the tent to meet outside with their groups. There are at least A MILLION citizens split into halves of crowds. The guards stay around them, at least two hundred each to protect them. Celestia and Luna then come up front to each group, and flash their horns. As the light glows, the princesses teleport themselves and pony citizens to the Crystal Empire in no time at all. Twilight keeps count of the friends staying to fight with her. Ironically, she puts William in charge to guard the fillies, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, much to his reluctance. She then looks at her friends, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Discord, Spike, Ian, Leo, Tails, TJ, Skull, Blade, Mokuba, and… there was somepony else missing. VOOM! The sound was heard as Fireblaze arrives behind Twilight. She looks back to see him, smiling. That makes fifteen team fighters in her group. And behind Fireblaze is his dragon army that followed him, with Garble as his assistant captain. “I’ll fight with my troops against the undead on the hills as you focus on the defending the town.” Fireblaze tells her, “I’ll even split my army into two separate troops to assist you in case something goes wrong.” “Got it.” Twilight nods. Twilight then has her friends follow her into the town of Ponyville, as Fireblaze flies to the sky to lead his troops to the hills to stop the zombies from advancing. The zombies are on the dirt trail to the town, as Nucor raises up his head to sense something. The zombie Cheese looks at him, as the Volucris bodied Cosmos grins at his expressions. The cage dragging Skull’s mother jolts a bit, as the female prisoner looks at Nucor, loathing him. If she’s more stronger than a zombie, she can be mortal. If she were mortal, she can confront him. She just wants to be brave to do that. “My son Skull will be with his friends, so bring no harm to him.” Nucor instructs to his troops, “I’m sure he’ll want to JOIN me…” “Yes master…” the zombies moan, as they keep walking. The main six ponies stroll around the town, looking at the change of it. Everything is deserted, all because of evil fear forced upon the other ponies. Still, Twilight has faith in her friends as they make the best out of their moments before battle. Spike then chokes out a diagram message magically from his mouth, as he also hands it to Twilight. She looks, seeing what Fireblaze and his troops are planning to do. They’ll make a mud bunker around the rim entrance to Ponyville, and it camouflaged so the zombies will fall in. The lava they’ll uses isn’t as dangerous either, since Garble mixed the essence with cold ice boulders. Once the lava trap in the bunker is released, it will snag the zombies by their legs, and they will remain stuck until Celestia finds the cure. Pinkie Pie then zooms up behind her, with a wagon filled with pumpkin spiced cupcakes. “HEY TWILIGHT!” Pinkie cheers, “What do you think of the treats I made for the troops.” Twilight looks at Pinkie, stunned. “How did you make these pastries so fast?” she asks. “I’m a complete mystery.” Pinkie just said. “I’ll say.” Spike admits. Discord is just across from the two of them, snapping his fingers to make something of his half magic. The best he makes is a hug contraption that can appear anytime at his command. It’s like a big metronome with a grandfather clock orb. Twilight looks at it, curious. “It’s… kind of like a manipulation trap…” Discord sighs, “When I wrongfully had your friends turn against you, it was a manipulation spell. I figured… the contraption can be used for good if the zombies will look at it an then attack each other. That will slow them down so we can strike them easier.” Twilight giggles and pats him on the back. “That will work just fine Discord.” she comments. She then looks at the rest of her friends, setting up their weapons given by Blade. Ian looks at his big sword that’s shaped like a machete, as Spike looks at his sword that has a huge arc curve. “Okay, is everything set?” Twilight asks. “Almost.” Rainbow Dash said, “I think me and Pinkie will go check on Fireblaze to see what he’ll do if case if he gets hit… or bitten…” “For all I know, Nucor will have zombie pegasi ponies too.” Twilight said, “We’ll be fighting them as well like the dragon army will.” Fireblaze watches over his army as they dig the bunker fast and furious. Coming up behind him is his favorite pony Rainbow Dash, and the excited Pinkie Pie, pulling her cart of cupcakes. “WHO’S HUNGRY?” she calls out to the dragons. The dragons beam in hunger as they see the tiny cakes, even Garble. They rush over to grab some, and their mouths water as they eat the delectable good. Rainbow Dash and Fireblaze grin, as she then looks serious at him. “You know, Nucor might have stronger magic too.” Rainbow Dash lets him know, “It won’t be easy to trap him.” “My troops are doing everything they can to get ready.” Fireblaze tells her, “I’m only going to start with the weaker zombies before approaching Nucor himself.” “What about Garble? How will he manage?” Rainbow Dash said. “Garble has planned to distract some of the pegasi zombie ponies was we take care of the ones on the ground.” Fireblaze tells Rainbow Dash, “He made some lava balls too throw them at the zombies too. They’re like grenades that spit out a hardening glue to slow the enemy down.” Fireblaze then hands the lava ball to Rainbow Dash, to show her what he’s talking about. “Here you go.” he said, “Just in case. You may need it.” “I… hope you’ll be okay.” Rainbow sighs. Fireblaze nods and hugs her. Rainbow Dash then waves at Pinkie that it’s time to go back to prepare for the fight. Pinkie nods, and leaves the cart for the dragon troops to fight over. They’re like wild children as they fight over the last cupcake. Fireblaze shouts at his troop to calm down as the cyan pegasi and pinkie earth pony walk off. As Nucor overlooks the barrier around Ponyville, he can hardly see the dragon soldiers hiding to surprise the raid at them. It has now been a couple hours since arrival, and Nucor turns to the Volucris body, deciding it’s interesting to start the fight with her. “Cosmos, why don’t you take yourself and zombie Cheese Sandwich for a visit to Tails and Pinkie Pie?” Nucor grins. “Yes master…” the two of them say. They then walk down slowly, as ten more zombies follow them. > Cosmos Takes the Field > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tails is Walking with TJ by him, as one holds a wrench for a weapon and a sword for another. TJ is kind of excited for the fight, despite it being covered in destined bloodshed. He even looks at his cousin, so weary and thoughtful. “What up cuz?” TJ asks him. “I’ve…. been thinking about giving Twilight a personal talk later. I just need to know if there’s anything she can do to spend some time with ME.” Tails tells TJ. “Dude, you’re forgetting. She’s engaged!” TJ advises. “I know.” Tails moans, “I just feel like I was supposed to be the one for her though.” “Envy is a sin.” TJ cautions. “I’m actually jealous.” Tails corrects and admits at the same time. The two foxes look down the area that heads toward the highest mountains. Tails recalls that one mountain was where Fluttershy gave “THE STARE” to an ignorant dragon smoking up Ponyville. He didn’t want to imagine what “THE STARE” would be like. CRACK! The sound tears up, as Tails sees something in the ground… moving… TJ gasps, as a green bloody vine comes towards them to pierce a stab at them. The two foxes dodge the vine attack, and look up to see who the assailant is. They were shocked, as they see Volucris’ body. “YOU!” Tails and TJ stammer. “Not Volucris just to let you know.” the villainous body said, “It’s COSMOS!” The evil creature laughs to mock the foxes. “HOW CAN YOU BE ALIVE?” Tails demands. “Nucor’s magic of course.” Cosmos giggles, “And now I have plans to spend the day with you, starting with biting your nimble neck…” “GO TO HELL!” Tails screams. He then blasts his waves at the enemy, but she blocks the attacks with her vines. She then has the vines reflect the waves back to Tails, as he jumps to miss each attack that targeted back to him. “HA! As you can see, Nucor increased my stamina! I can sense any attack ahead of time and do something about it quickly!” Cosmos cackles, “TRY AND BLAST ME AGAIN, I DARE YOU!” Tails snarls loud and fierce. This challenge is not going to be a piece of cake. Pinkie Pie acts bored as she bounces a tennis ball back and forth against the shop wall. Rainbow Dash hangs out with her, wondering when she’ll ease that pouting trait of hoping for action. Rainbow wanted it too, but she’s not TOO eager. “Anything else troubling you?” Rainbow asks her. Pinkie stops bounding the ball. “I’m just… guilty about my rivalry with Cheese Sandwich long ago. Now I feel WORSE after what happened to him.” Pinkie admits. “Yeah, I know. It sucks.” Rainbow agrees, “He did collaborate with you well though, for… MY fun.” “Yeah, we DID work as a team, didn’t we?” Pinkie smiles. BANG! The sound of thundering explosion is heard, as Pinkie and Rainbow rush out to see what’s causing the charade. Pinkie gasps when she sees the foxes fight Cosmos on Volucris’ dead body. Then, something blocks her view! The ZOMBIE CHEESE SANDWHICH has stormed up front to her, and his mighty rush made a sonic wave that crashed every door out of the abandoned houses and shops. “Pinkie….” the zombie hisses. “Cheese…” Pinkie cries softly, “Don’t do this…” “Master Nucor told me his orders. Search and DESTROY!” the zombie Cheese screams. Then, Cheese advances at Pinkie and Rainbow to attack them both. Rainbow rushes to fight back, but a sudden sonic wave from Cheese comes from his hooves. The waves then shatter the bones in Rainbow’s wings, and send her flying back to Pinkie Pie, injured and weak. Rainbow and Pinkie both whimper in fear, as the pink part pony picks up a knife for a self-defense weapon. Cheeses’ wave knocks it out of her hoof though, as he then makes the wave colorful, raising it up in the air to make a bad epic move. POW! Cheese falls to the side of the room, as Pinkie turns to see that Ian came just in time, throwing a big kitchen table at him. As the table covers Cheese to try and trap him, the zombie slave has both his hooves break the tale in half, shattering it into splinters. “He… broke my wings…” Rainbow sobbed to Ian. “I’m so sorry.” the diamond dog cried. “This isn’t like Cheese Sandwich…” Pinkie whimpers. “That’s because he no longer is.” Rainbow Dash sighs. “It’s true. Nucor’s power sunk into him well.” Ian said, getting closer to his friends to protect them, “We have no choice but to…” “Fight… I know…” Pinkie scowls, starting to throw cupcakes at the undead Cheese, “But I have to find SOME WAY to get through to him!” The cupcakes were stale and hard when Pinkie keeps throwing them, yet Cheese dodges the hard food. Ian especially keeps throwing whatever abandoned wood chairs he can find in the room to slow the zombie down. Pinkie, Rainbow, and Ian have a fight that isn’t easy to win. “I have to yell… for Twilight…” Pinkie finally decides. Twilight was making a strategic map in the dirt with Spike watching, until she heard a piercing scream in the sky. It’s coming from Pinkie Pie. “THE ZOMBIES ARE BREAKING IN!” Pinkie cries. Twilight looks up behind her, seeing that the first ten that came with Cosmos and Cheese are coming towards her and Spike. As she and Spike start to fight side by side against the ten powerful zombies, she can see in the hills that almost the majority of the undead slaves fallen trap into the dragon army’s barrier. As of now, they are already throwing their lava balls at them to slow them down. Twilight then focuses back on the fight, as she dodges the swiping teeth chomps targeting her. She then blasts them back with her alicorn magic, turning the five zombies she’s fighting into dust. Spike then jumps into action as he spits a hug gust of green flame out of his mouth. It scorches some of the zombies, but the next three that aren’t struck jump through the flame to knock him in the head. Spike falls down, but jumps back up as he swings his tail to smash the upcoming two zombies in the jaw. The move knocks them unconscious, but the last three coming at him are still active. Twilight then flies above them and makes a good pinning strike on them, holding them down to the ground. “Good move.” Spike compliments. “Thank you.” Twilight smiles, crushing the zombies’ nervous systems that send them to sleep. Discord has heard the call from Pinkie, as he stays close to Fluttershy, Rarity, Skull, and Applejack. He fears that Nucor is falling in now, that Cosmos and Cheese has called the surprise attack to initiate. That’s what they expected though, but is there any chance to survive it?” Discord hugs his four pony friends, running to get them to safety. He nuzzles at Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity on their heads as they cry in happiness when feeling his loving warmth. Then, Skull looks behind Discord. “DISCORD, WATCH OUT!” he screams. To their shock, a giant magical shadow hand grabs Discord, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Skull all at the same time. The hand has more human sized hands tear open at the big palm, grabbing the five friends on their necks. As they all choke and wheeze at the gripping pain, Nucor comes of the smoke and shadows, laughing at them being hurt when controlling the hand. “Ah… Discord. I see you’re the one that made my son reformed… AGAINST MY WILL!” Nucor roars, “Now I’m going to make you suffer. But hey, I’ll make a special deal on your death package. Your friends here can die along with you! They’ll get in the way anyhow.” He then has the little human sized hand releases Skull from his grip, as he falls hard on the ground. “AS FOR YOU!” Nucor says to Skull, “I have a score to settle. For now, I’ll kill you Discord, along with your friends. Then I’ll confront Celestia and take her place as ruler of Equestria.” A shadow hand suddenly arises out of Skull’s head, as the pony controls it well with his mind. Without pausing, he has his magical giant hand thrash forward to Nucor, smashing him in the head. The punch sends Nucor backward, as Discord, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are released from the grip. They look at Skull, amazed of his power. “LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!” Skull screams. “I will do that…” Nucor chuckles, “But only if you join me. You’re my son, I want what’s best for you. And your mother… well…” Nucor makes a cackling noise as a signal, as the zombies appearing behind him bring out Skull’s mother, still locked in her cage. “Hey… I met her before.” Discord whispers to his friends, “Her name is Maria. She must be…” “Skull’s mother…” Fluttershy sobs. Skull too, is shocked and enraged. “MOM!” Skull screams, “NUCOR! You aren’t thinking of...” “BUT I AM!” Nucor finally says, “JOIN ME, OR SHE’LL DIE!” “NEVER!” Skull screams. “Well, have it your way…” Nucor laughs. He then has his magic hand take Maria out of her cage, as he starts to choke her slowly. He then looks at his zombie assistants, and there are about thirty of them. “KILL THEM!” Nucor orders. As the zombies head toward them, Fluttershy and Rarity scream, but Discord, Applejack, and Skull are the first to step in front to fight. Skull uses his dark magic for good, as he attacks the zombies with his giant hand spell. The hand strikes the zombies at their sides, as it also pushes Skull up in the air to miss the zombies’ falling moves. Applejack stays close to Rarity and Fluttershy, using her lasso to truss up the first zombies she can she, trapping them and swinging them around. She uses them as weapons, to knock down their own troops. Finally, she has them swinging long and far away, for who knows how many miles? Rarity and Fluttershy at Applejack’s brave move, as she looks back to wink at them. Discord then has his chaos magic grow serious, as he has it blast towards Nucor. The villain then rises up with a jump, missing the blast to land on Discord face as kicking him. Discord then hops and flies back, spitting blood out of his face during the fight. He keeps himself afloat in the air, as he looks at Nucor face to face. “I won’t let you hurt my friends. They mean more to me than anything else in Equestria!” Discord weeps, “I WILL PROTECT THEM WITH MY LIFE, FOR TWILIGHT, FOR CELESTIA!” “How stupid of you!” Nucor smirks. He then collides back to Discord, as they resume their stating fight. Tails and TJ think they won’t win so far. Cosmos’ power has been far more powerful than how he saw it last time. TJ knows there’s something in his belt that should help him and his cousin. Maybe there is… As Tails keeps dodging Cosmos’ moves to keep her occupied, TJ searches his belt pockets. Could they be in there? THEY ARE! TJ pulls out two pairs of Portara earrings. They’re like a mixed stone of emerald and crystal, and how they work is that… well, to TJ… once put on, the wave powers both foxes have will be shared and combined, and both of them will then create a HUGE wave to defeat their enemy. Side effects might include huge brightness on their palms of their hands. TJ looks at Tails, as Tails glances back at him when Cosmos isn’t looking. TJ then throws the first pair of earing to Tails, as the fox catches them. Tails then puts his earrings on, as TJ does so too. Then, once put on, a big flash lights up, blinding Cosmos as their powers fuse together. She gasps when she sees their change… the change in their fighting fists once both their energies are starting to share. The two foxes then hold of their fists and smirk at Cosmos. TJ was right about the side effect, their hands are powerful looking, even if they’re bright as the sun. Cheese Sandwich is a freakin’ zombie! It’s all wrong. WRONG! Pinkie Pie only kept growling in frustration as her old friend now heads towards her again, just after tearing the wood apart from more chairs thrown at him. Ian and Rainbow stagger to their feet to protect Pinkie, as Cheese opens up his bloody mouth. The zombie almost has an urge to kill them, and instinct to murder, a chance to hunt its prey. “Time to join us.” the zombie Cheese moans. RUMBLE! A sudden roar of falling stones collapse through the ceiling as a pile of rocks suddenly appear, forming a blockade between Pinkie, Rainbow, and Ian against their enemy. Cheese’s attack was also block and reflected back to him the moment his wave aura bounces back to push him down. On the other side of the rock wall, another dragon appears in front of the diamond dog and six ponies. He’s wearing a blur leotard suit, and his scaly skin is green. It’s quite obvious he’s with the dragon army, but he looks like an assassin. Smoke then comes out of his nose. Ian can tell too, that he’s a kind of dragon that can’t breath fire. There are two types of dragons, those that breathe out destined fire for fighting, and those who just fight without flame. Ian observes the newcomer dragon’s nimble hands then. He’s a rock bender, a dragon assassin that breaks through earth’s barriers and can hold fire with his bard hands. HE CAN HOLD FIRE! Ian can tell because of the scorches on his palms. Damn though, it looked painful. “You guys okay?” the sexy dragon asks, “Fireblaze sent me here to help you guys.” “Yeah, well thanks.” Rainbow Dash smiles, “What’s your name?” “Jackson, just Jackson. I’m like a spy, but I kill the damned villains.” he said, “What happened to… your wings?” “Broken…” Pinkie sighed, “Nucor planned every attack to harm us.” “Well, lucky I have a first aid kit to help you guys out.” Jackson said, pulling it out from his backpack, “We need to wrap bandages around the wings quickly. Flying my not be operable for at least forty-eight hours. I also recommend we search through the hospitals and doctors’ offices abandoned. We need to search for medicine, anti-pain pills, anything that can keep us going until more zombies come.” “Forty eight…” Rainbow starts to moan, “No matter, I can wait…” “Fireblaze will also come to us if anything is wrong, just I call one roar in the sky.” Jackson adds. “Good ol’ Fireblaze.” Rainbow Dash smiles. “Yeah, I know he used to be an expert at creating his own medicine.” Jackson sighs, “Didn’t practice much after a while though. However, his father once made special potions, all with one special formula… I’ll tell more about it later though…” “Okay, but still… FIREBLAZE’S FATHER… an expert at potions!?” Rainbow Dash sighs in awe. “Damn.” Ian said. “Well, we better go. Your friends may need you in…” Jackson starts to decide. BLAM! Before the four friends even left, Cheese breaks through the rock barrier with his sonic wave. His eyes are red with blood and violence when looking at them. “GRRRRR! YOU WILL JOIN!” the zombie growls. “Not today.” Jackson snaps. Then, Jackson began to bend his legs and feet forward and backward all together, as he has lava magically spit out at the palms of his hands. The lava fires than strike Cheese and sends him flying towards the wall. Cheese’s touch with the lava makes him scream as he falls back to the floor. He runs up to hit Jackson, but the dragon jumps away, looking at his friends. He then nods at them, telling them to get away. “YOU IMBECILE!” the zombie growls at Jackson. Pinkie, Rainbow, and Ian run out, as they then meet two dragon soldiers coming into action to assist them. One dragon then carries Rainbow in his arms to protect her. The gang looks back at Jackson, as he starts fighting Cheese Sandwich. “One of you, get Rainbow Dash to meet Fireblaze!” Jackson instructs to the soldiers, “The other, help Pinkie and Ian kick ass!” “Please don’t hurt Cheese….” Pinkie requests before leaving. “I’ll try and slow him down.” Jackson promises. Down below Discord and Nucor, a zombie pony appears to punch Skull to the ground. He looks up, seeing Fluttershy attacking more zombies as she rages about Nucor trying to kill her friends. Rarity and Applejack stay by her side, as the fashion pony shoots blue sparks out of her horn to burn up the zombies into a crisp. Applejack then uses her lasso as a whip to back the ponies up, so Fluttershy can use her own battering attack as she flies close to the undead, swinging her fists at them. Skull then looks at his mother, HIS MOTHER, locked in the cage. She’s hurt, bad… worse… she’s undead… Darkness covers him once again, as he hears thunder sound in his ears. A giant cloud then magically appears over his head, as lighting sparks out. He then grows a couple more feet, maybe up to the same height as Nucor’s. His power aura then glows around his body, as Nucor halts his fight with Discord to see this. Discord looks at Skull too, surprised. As Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack take down all their zombie opponents, they then see Skull, gasping. William, who is hiding with the Cutie Mark Crusaders in a trash bin looks across the way to see this too. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo look with him in curiosity. “What’s Skull turning into?” Apple Bloom asks. “I don’t know.” William answers. Everypony focuses, as Nucor floats down to the ground to meet face to face with his son again. The evil jerk smiles. “This power of yours doesn’t look TOO dark.” Nucor scoffs, “What do you call this… thunder power going around?” Then, Skull sends an explosion to strike Nucor. Nucor falls back when burned badly by the explosion flame, while the firing move dies down. Skull then has his magic change his own wardrobe of appearance. The smoke around his body then turns into a hoodie that looks like a grim reaper outfit. He then has a scythe carried on his back for a weapon, as his eyes changed into pure white like the bone. Skull is now really PISSED at his father. “I call my powers the gift of life. I fight death, because my powers ARE DEATH!” Skull screams at Nucor, “I’m not a grim reaper, but I’m a savior! All because of your experiments on me, YOU turned me into this! I forgot how, but you did! BUT IF WE FIGHT, I’M GOING TO DECIDE MY OWN FATE! IF I LIVE, I LIVE! IF I DIE, I die…” Nucor doesn’t know what to say, but he laughs. “I feel as if you inspire me, my son…” Nucor sighs, “I’ll have no choice but to have my troops retreat. I’m not ready to fight you… not yet. But, I WILL BACK! In the next city we meet, be prepared…” Nucor then turns around, looking at the direction of his troops. “OUR FIGHT ISN’T PERFECT YET TROOPS! RETREAT!” Nucor calls. The other ponies look in surprise, as Nucor leads his zombie army out of Ponyville, for now. But Skull cries more, even if he won THIS fight peacefully. The cage holding his mother is being guarded real well by toxic zombies. And he knows they’re TOO TOXIC. One bite from their flesh, and the change in anypony is fatal. Manipulation, appearance, change, maybe leading to… DEATH! Skull then looks ahead, seeing a green assassin dragon in a leotard suit. It’s Jackson, and he’s looking at his new friends. “Cheese Sandwich just left without encouraging me…” he reports. “Well, you must be Jackson.” Discord smiles. “Hello Discord.” Jackson sighs. “You know, the way Nucor backed away from Skull… something tells me Skull is the key to stopping the zombies.” Discord thinks out loud. The power glowing around Skull then does down, as he returns back to his earth self, fainting from the loss of some of his energy. He also felt a zap when being normal again, as Fluttershy hugs him to make sure he’s safe. Pinkie Pie then approaches up to the gang with Ian and the other dragon soldiers. They look around, wondering what’s going on. “We better let Skull rest for a while.” Discord says. “WOW! SKULL IS SO BADASS!” William cheers, coming out of his hiding place with the fillies. Applejack just shakes he head a William’s idiocy. Fireblaze is by Rainbow Dash’s side, as she lays on the medic bed inside a tent. She looks up at her companion, smiling when Fireblaze looks down at her. “You… know how Cheese Sandwich knows Pinkie?” the dragon pony asks. “She… put together a party with him, just to make for me.” Rainbow sighs. “Right.” Fireblaze nods, recalling. He rubs aloe paste on Rainbow’s wings, so it can soothe her feathers feeling the pain. “This aloe paste has a bit of magical lava to mend the bones.” Fireblaze lets her know, “But I should warn you, the healing may sting. You’re still young thought, so it may be quick.” “Okay.” Rainbow nods. “I’m going outside to see how the rest of the troops are doing.” Fireblaze tells her. Rainbow nods, as Fireblaze leaves the tent. He then meets up with Twilight, hearing news about Rainbow Dash’s wings. “Will she be fine?” the alicorn asks. “Yes, she just needs rest.” Fireblaze nods. He then walks off, checking in with the rest of his troops. Tails and TJ enjoy their walk, passing by the dragons to see how they train. TJ then looks back at his cousin, who’s smiling about their victory. It was all just a climax when they faced Cosmos in Volucris’ body. Tails and TJ both blasted their giant yellow rays at cosmos like melting plaster into hazardous chemicals. She was yet swift, and she rushed at them with the same powers Volucris used to have. Tails and TJ had flew up higher into the air to miss her attacks, but she followed them back as well. She then thrashes her teeth open, sending contagious blood balls to strike the foxes to the ground. The fox cousins use their earing power to melt the ball, and have it turn into a giant light to bounce back as a reflection sun kind of strike. Tails and TJ then move their limbs at a jinx style signal, and have their hands extend open to shoot a giant blast from their palms at the same time to hit Cosmos once more. BLAM! The mighty blow takes Cosmos down to the ground as she’s trapped in a huge crater hole made for her. She gets up with high strength, ready to fight the foxes again as they float back down to meet her. The foxes were ready to end this too, until… “OUR FIGHT ISN’T PERFECT YET TROOPS! RETREAT!” Nucor calls. Cosmos sneers when hearing this, looking directly at the foxes. “I’LL BE BACK!” she vows. “Yeah, then we’ll blast your ass.” Tails smirks. “HA!” TJ adds. The foxes then returned to normal, as Cosmos turned to leave to follow the other zombie troops. Now, Tails and TJ are walking, reflecting on how the fight went. They want to learn more about these aura moves, since such magic came from Equestria itself. What’s more to learn though? It’s just like fighting, with… Okay, Tails landed himself on that one. He might have to train a bit more, just until he sees Cosmos again. TJ looks at Tails, thinking the same thing. “Hey, look.” TJ says to Tails, pointing at somepony. The two foxes turn to see Mokuba in the distance, just near the dragon army when he’s in the target practice field. Mokuba is full of courage and strength, ready to fight anypony without any problem. Like Tails, he wanted training too. However, he felt like training himself. Eyeing at the target practice an pile of hey, he busts of his waves, the same Kamehameha wave Tails uses to attack his enemies. “This is what you’ll taste, zombie bastards…” Mokuba growls. Mokuba then fires away, making a huge gust of aura that incinerates the hay pile into crisp firing wood picks. Mokuba smirks, pleased of a good start. Tails and TJ just look in awe at how far Mokuba is coming. Twilight also saw in the distance, and chuckles at how well the filly prince is practicing. The zombies have no idea who they’re messing with. > An Affair to Remember > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in Ponyville, Fluttershy goes back into her cottage to make sure everything isn’t torn apart or invaded by zombies. It’s all clear so far, and she can see her pet rabbit Angel hiding in one of the kitchen cupboards. As she helps him down, Discord comes into her house to help lay Skull on her couch to rest. William, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo also head in to hang out, curious of how everypony is doing. Soon, Skull awakes in front of them, and Fluttershy comes over to hug him. She sits next to him, giving him a cup of tea she just heated at the oven. Skull drinks, also seeing William is taking big gulps of tea, only to burn his tongue and scream in the process. Skull chuckles at this, and then turns to Fluttershy. “You were very brave confronting your father with whatever power you just brought out.” Fluttershy compliments. “Yes, and not to worry. The form is only used for good purposes, I would never manipulate it.” Skull said, “I think my anger built up my power too, since I saw my mother imprisoned by my own… ABUSIVE father. I’m just glad you all are safe.” “Well the fight isn’t over yet, even though we’re resting.” Fluttershy sighs, “Nucor might think of your weak spot when you’re under the dark power.” “No kidding.” Skull agrees, “He might have his zombies nest at the cities he just attacked to, Fillydelphia and Baltimare. I’m sure the zombies will map out to attack Vanhoover and Manehatten as well.” “That meanie….” Fluttershy sneered about Nucor. “And the worst part is…. the city f Manehatten was built over an abandoned graveyard. As time passed by, ponies were unaware of what’s under the city.” Skull tells her, “I’ve snuck into Twilight’s library just for the heck of it the other day, and I found something insane. There is a tiny pink gem that carries the same dark power Nucor and me hold, only it’s combined with the powers of Volucris, Tirek, and Sombra altogether. I think the other purpose my dad has is to find the stoned gem, so he’ll win this damned battle. The power that will sink into him then is known as… dark chaos.” “Dark Chaos?” Discord asks, sipping his tea, “I think I learned about that long ago. It’s similar to my powers, only it’s…. worse….” “How?” Fluttershy asks. “Well, I was here during the construction long ago, disguised as a pony since I was on the lam. And… I’m sure if you knew this but… I had a brother once.” Discord said. “Really?” Fluttershy asks. “Oh yes, his name was Terrence, a draconequus just like me. He actually created the gem stone that holds the dark magic, since he practiced the power himself.” Discord reveals, “I… then confronted him one day, because normally I used my chaos for playing around. But Terrence, he unfortunately wanted more. His eyes glowed blood red the last time I saw him. And he…. didn’t do innocent destruction. He KILLED everypony. I had to seal him away, just before Celestia sealed me, then… of course released me. Thinking of Terrence…” Discoed wept at this sudden memory of his, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Fluttershy come up to hug him to cheer him up. “Discord. We never knew before…” Apple Bloom also weeps. “Well, that’s definitely what Nucor is looking for.” Skull said, “And if he’s looking for the gem, he’ll release Terrence too. Maybe, Nucor might form into HIS appearance, take out his spirit possibly.” “One thing I should also let you know is that Terrence messed with unicorn powers in grisly ways too.” Discord adds, “He also has the ability to turn any undead unicorn into a flaming monster that destroys its targets. Like Nucor, he recreates the undead into bad… creatures…” “We… probably should inform Twilight about this.” Fluttershy considers. “We also need to think of a plan to protect her. Rarity too. Nucor will do anything to possess alicorn or unicorn alike.” Discord advises, “If Nucor DOES release Terence…” Fluttershy turns to William and the fillies. “You guys stay here to watch skull.” she tells them. “OH! Come on!” William complains. Discord and Fluttershy insist, as they leave the house to find Twilight and tell her the worst news. Skull just lays in place, looking at his friends. William just sits by him, sighing at when this will all end. For all Skull hopes, he wants it to end too. He wants to strength to come back quickly so he can be part of Nucor’s defeat. The zombies have took complete control over Baltimare, as they have their shelters in each building secure and infested. The moaning is loud throughout the city, like a stereo of incessant wasps humming a death tune. The rest of the zombie majority stays close to the city hall. After all, Nucor is their leader, and he is in the building to plan his next move. In the abandoned conference room of the city hall itself, the brainwashed Cheese Sandwich stays close to him. The zombie pony was appointed lieutenant of his zombie army, as Cosmos was appointed the spell caster. The Volucris bodied monster also stands by Nucor, as he is thinking long and hard in his seat. He looks down, observing all the newspapers from different dates that are scattered al over the place on the table, just when panic came from him invading the city. The zombie lieutenant than hands him a privately low-budget newspaper he found in Ponyville. Nucor snatches it from him, and looks inside to see the pictures and words. All the same political issues that shared controversy of city mayors was quite a topic in these papers. Then, he found a historical memory section. One that talks about Discord’s sadistic brother. Discord had already guessed that Nucor would find about him, and boy… is he right. As Nucor read more about the history, he smiles evilly. He then looks up to Cheese and Cosmos. His teeth gnaw in pleasure, like he’s chewing tobacco. “I have a way to stop my son.” Nucor sneers. He throws the paper down on the table, revealing a picture that has the statue of Terrence, located in the middle of Manehatten. “Terrence, brother of Discord.” Nucor explains, “He’s just enough to kill his brother and the stupid six ponies, along with the fucking dragon. My son, he’ll lure him to me, as he brings more unicorns to my power, for all I hope. Still, Manehatten has built tight security after it’s past incidents with changelings and vampires. We’ll have to destroy that barrier if we want to get to crack open the statue to release Terrence. Manehatten, my next property. Heh. Have my troops prepared for their next road trip, will you two?” “Yes master.” Cosmos and Cheese moan. The two of them then go outside to instruct the orders to the zombies, as Nucor lies in his seat, laughing. “Let’s see if you can handle my new assistant, TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” Nucor laughs. Twilight felt blank after that first fight with zombies today. The way she encountered them was so… odd. It’s like she really opened up to a darker experience that turns her into an adult. That’s just something to get used to. Anyway, she’s in her tent, made with the help of Fireblaze’s dragon troops. She’s looking at maps, planning where to strike next to surprise Nucor and his zombies. Then, Tails suddenly enters the room, not even having Twilight know. Yet, she wasn’t startled, and she knew he entered the room quietly. “What can I help you with?” she asks. “I just wanted to hang out with you.” Tails said. “I’m not doing much. Just planning.” Twilight responds. “Have you heard about Flash?” Tails wondered. “He’s with Celestia and Luna, helping calm down the victims as they hid in the Crystal Empire.” Twilight responds. “Have you also thought about…” Tails starts to ask. Twilight turns to see his face, concerned. “This isn’t the time.” she said, “Nucor is going to attack, and we can’t worry about romance or who’s supposed to fall in love with who. Lives are at stake, and it’s…” “Also the same as loving anypony?” Tails tries to understand. It’s awkward, because Tails is trying to say anything that compares to him loving her, she knew. She sighs and nods. Tails then comes up to hug her. “I’ll do anything to help… if that’s all you want.” Tails says. “That’s good enough.” Twilight sighs. She then looks up to his eyes, and not thinking… She brought her lips to his. The kiss was a spark, but it seemed like a mix of right and wrong. Twilight knew, as did Tails. A certain love affair is underway. The kisses made her pull back, blushing. Tails fell back too, shuddering. They don’t know if they want to get too close so soon at this hour. Yet, they pulled back at the right time, because Discord and Fluttershy enter the tent. “Oh, hello.” Twilight huffs, “What’s up?” “Twilight… did you know Discord has a brother?” Fluttershy asks her. “No…” Twilight said, surprised. “Than I think there’s something we need to talk about.” Fluttershy said > Terrence, Draconeqous of Evil > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight listened very carefully at what Fluttershy explained, summarizing all the words Discord told. The whole story even shocked Tails, not even knowing about Terrence. And his power, would he be good enough to fight against some evil twin? “Terrence is not like any creature or draconequus you might have seen, or anypony has…” Discord confesses, “I should have told you about him, and the fact he’ll make unicorns fire up and become deadly. Any power he gives them can have that race burn ANYTHING in its path, maybe kill somepony.” “Is there a way we can defeat your brother?” Twilight asks. “Well, there may be a weak link to his power, just as he strengthens a link between him and the unicorns he possess, all including the alicorns.” Discord thinks out loud, “If we can find a way to break that link during the fight, it might weaken his chaos, and we’ll strike him very well.” “That could work, I guess.” Twilight thinks, worried, “But the other ponies, CELESTIA! And what about Cadence and Luna? He could target them!” “We’re not going to let that happen!” Discord promises. Twilight smiles, as she looks at him, Tails, and Fluttershy standing tall, keeping their word to be by Twilight’s side. “Thank you.” she said. The streets were quiet in the city of Manehatten, as all the ponies have evacuated inside buildings to be safe. The police guard them, along with royal guards standing at the barrier wall to keep watch for the upcoming monsters. Shining Armor and Flash were also there to assist their troops to protect the city. It was strange that there was a failure to evacuate everypony to leave this city, but the Crystal Empire was full for some reasons. And Shining Armor made a weird assumption that a zombie pony might see the crowd surviving in its distance, finding a way to destroy the empire if that were to happen. It was all tense now that he’s keeping everypony in the city, safe from the enemy. He then looks at Flash. “This is all to much. So confusing…” Shining Armor admits. “I’m a bit confused myself too.” Flash adds, “Um, Shining Armor… your sister… Twilight… do you think she’s fit for me?” “Well, you were a guard once.” Shining Armor states, “Anypony in royal rank is destined to be… prince probably. I’d say do your part, if you want to practice restoring order to lower destruction.” “I know, I’m not too concerned about that.” Flash said, “I just had a feeling that Twilight… might have more affections for… somepony else.” Shining Armor sighs, and puts a hoof on his shoulder. “I’m sure she has true feelings for you.” Shining Armor comforts, “Hey, unlike me, I had a harder time dating Cadence for a couple years before she saw MY affections.” “Pfft. Bachelor.” Flash jokes. As both ponies chuckle, a scream is heard. Banging than grows louder, as both Shining Armor and Flash rush to the guarding wall to see what their troops are up against. They climb up the barrier, and gasp at the sight. The zombies bang and thrash their spike formed hooves at the barrier, tearing through the walls and eating up the metal scraps without even feeling the bleeding in their mouths. They climb up the wall like a ladder with colliding their bodies to make a pyramid like step way. Guards keep shooting their arrows, but get pulled outside the way the reaching grip of the zombies. As more guards are being lost, Nucor rises up with the zombies supporting his body, as if a pillar is setting him up for a podium. Flash then squints his eyes, realizing Nucor is chanting something. He can see his lips moving, calling out a spell…. “ZATAN NATO NEATH DETAH! BLASTSA THATA BARA!” Nucor suddenly screams. He then raises his hooves, having the aura glow real huge and bright as he chanted the words four more times. Then, he aimed at the barrier in four separate zones, locating where to hit. BLAM! That sound was made exactly four times, as he strikes and melts each section of the barrier, having his hooves make the blasts in square movements. It took some time for the guards to retreat backwards while still the zombies that are sneaking inside. Finally, the barrier is destroyed by Nucor’s magic aura. “KILL THEM ALL!” Nucor roars to his zombie slaves, “I have business I wish to tend to… with Terrence. HEHEHEHEHEHE!” The zombies have then taken all of the royal guards down as they rush into the city, but the fight still resumes. Police ponies interfere wit their invasion, as they shoot their assault riffles at the zombies, piercing them through their eyes to tear out their brains. The zombies then roar, jumping at the police ponies to tear at least five apart, though hundreds of the law ponies come to the zombies by surprise, throwing tear gas to slow them down. The gas is doing its effect, as the zombies cough and try to find their way through the smoke like chemical fog. They hiss, and then knocked out with a big mallet, as Flash trots real fast against them to crack their skulls. As he runs, he smashes the jaws of the zombies as they try to bite him. He then jumps away as they extend the poisoned thorns connected to their hooves. He keeps balance of his tripping, as he then pulls out a katana knife to their surprise, chopping off their heads like a hit man savage would do. Shining Armor does his part in battle, as he swings his sword against the zombie thorned hooves, using the blade as his shield. He then pushes them back, while chopping off their hooves with a fast sling. They roar, as blood bleeds out their legs. Shining Armor then knew they aren’t brainwash ponies under a zombie spell, they’re zombies for real. There’s no dealing sense in them if they only follow the law of Nucor. “Keep focus Shining Armor.” he tells himself, “Keep focus.” Nucor has just knocked out all the police force that have bee keeping guard of the underground tomb statue that sealed up Terrence. The stairway to the tomb like crypt was in the middle of the city, which is like an abandoned park. With so much power, Nucor has accomplished so much to get whet he wanted, just so he can bring misery onto everypony. Now, he’s in front of the strong metal door, sealing up the tomb that held the statue. The door won’t stop Nucor easily. BLAM! His aura breaks open the metal entrance, tearing apart the bolts and hinges. It then falls flat on the floor, as Nucor breathes in awe at the villain he wished to visit all this time. The statue almost has the same resemblance as Discord, except his eyebrows are much huger than his. He has no buck tooth that’s sharp either, just huge, HUGE, razor sharp teeth that looks like there’s blood stained on them. His eyes loo human and immoral, to show his dishonesty and meanness. His body, two human arms, and two spider legs for his limbs. His head is also one that resembles a fox. His tail is the same like a lizards. Nucor licks his lips in pleasure. He slowly comes up to the statue to collect his prize, raising his hoof close to his cheek. He then SMASHES the hoof to break the stone, having light tear open through the cracks, as the tiny lines grow bigger, and bigger…. CRACKLE! SNAP! BANG! Smoke erupts and fills the entire cryptic dome room, as Nucor closes his eyes to keep the dust out of his optic lenses. He then opens them again, seeing the creature breathing and rattling. He isn’t even stretching to be relieved of his release, he just snarls in fury and anger. Now that Terrence is released, he also turns to Nucor to see his face. He’s curious, wondering why he freed him. He also didn’t know why he cared, he can just kill anypony if he wanted to. “Who are you?” Terrence demanded. “Your savior.” Nucor said, “And I have an offer I want to give you.” “What kind of offer?” Terrence asks. “It will involve getting revenge on your own brother, Discord.” Nucor said. Twilight has all her friends with her when they approach closer to Manehatten. Their new assignment was clear, as Twilight decided. They’ll head into the city to see how they can help Shining Armor and Flash, as they find a way to stop Tirek from releasing Terrence. The dragon armies will then stay behind in Ponyville, to repair it and guard the town from any other zombie that might interfere. Twilight sighs in fear, as she can then see the fire coming from the Manehatten buildings from over the mountain. The barrier is broken, and the zombies are already attacking the guards and officers. She now wonders how Flash and Shining Armor are doing. Fluttershy, Spike, Tails, TJ, Discord, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash then rush forward real fast and enraged. They’re determined to help bring the zombies to justice to Twilight’s loved ones can be safe. POW! SLAM! A sudden punch and wrestling creature than catches Discord, grabbing him by the neck to choke him. The main six ponies scream in horror at the creature trying to kill Discord, and run at it to try and stop it’s deed. The creature then snaps his fingers and puts the gang in chains that cling them to the ground. As they all over at the same time, Twilight looks up and weeps. Discord especially sobs in sadness and is scared as hell as he sees his arch rival. “Hello, brother…” Terrence sneers. > In Which Flash Sentry Becomes an Evil Zombie > --------------------------------------------------------------------------     Mokuba is sharing his same emotion of distress as the dark magical chains hold him down, along with his friends. He also looks at Twilight Sparkle, whimpering in fear as she looks at the horrific look of anger in Terrence’s face. Fluttershy weeps, as the evil brother digs his hands deeper to clutch hard onto Discord’s throat. Discord also looks back at Twilight and Fluttershy, then looking at Rainbow Dash, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, the Mokuba, as they writhe in pain. He then looks back up to his brother, feeling like he should just bark something at him. Instead, he weeps out to beg for mercy, also wishing that his friends would live.       “Let them go…” Discord pleas.       “Why should I?” Terrence mocks, “I’m already intending to have your main six friends and pesky dragon part of the zombie clan, as ordered by Nucor. As for the foxes, what should I care? And Mokuba… your mother and father are in for a surprise. When both the alicorns and unicorn come closer to me, I will strike them and consumer their magic. Imagine them then… controlled to kill their friends and families by my power! They can also manipulate earth and pegasi ponies by my command!”       “YOU LEAVE MOM AND DAD OUT OF THIS!” Mokuba roars.       “Oh, be quiet!” Terrence snaps, gripping deeper to almost kill Discord, “My business is just beginning…”       BLAM!       The sudden blast hits Terrence hard as a meteor, as the chains suddenly disappear from Twilight and her friends. The evil brother’s magic weakens a tad bit before rising up again, as Discord gets up coughing back air. Terrence then looks up to see who’s responsible for striking the attack at him.       “YOU DARE INTERFERE!” Terrence screams.       Discord comes over to hug Twilight and Fluttershy, three of them then looking up to smile at their saviors joining their fight. Fireblaze, Skull, Blade, and Coco are trotting up to protect their friends just in time. Fluttershy was also relieved to see that Skull has his health restored.       “Leave our friends alone…” Skull sneers at the villain.       Terrence eyes Skull, then looks at Fireblaze.       “I didn’t know one of Thanor’s sons would arrive here to screw up my desires.” Terrence scoffs.       “There’s no way you an possibly drain magic from a DRAGON PONY!” Rainbow Dash smirks.       “I have to admit, I already think Discord is a better creature than you are.” Fluttershy taunts.       Skull approaches closer to Terrence to protect his friends, claiming he’s ready to fight anytime. He even holds up his scythe, breathing heavily. Terrence just laughs, curious to see if there’s anything else they have to say.       “Well, a sicko like you wants to do this like a challenged brawl. Right?” Twilight asks.       “That’s the idea.” Terrence smiles.       “I don’t trust whatever death game this is!” Blade said, holding his swords, “You’re working with Nucor, and he released you!”       “And what of my brother?” Twilight then demands, “You haven’t harmed him, have you?”       “Not yet. But I’m looking forward to it.” Terrence cackles.       “Discord’s brother…” Skull hums to himself, amazed of this calm meeting.       The reaper pony then looks at his father approaching behind the twisted brother, Nucor. The zombie slaves follow him, circling around the heroes to trap them in a death arena with flesh eaters for the barrier. Twilight breathes slowly, knowing their battle fate. There’s no escape, and they have to fight to survive with no plan at all.       “Looks like the gang is all here.” Nucor chuckles.       “FATHER, I’LL TEAR YOU INTO PIECES FOR THIS!” Skull promises.       “You always had it in yourself, didn’t you?” Nucor snickers.       “Perhaps you can tell me since Terrence didn’t…” Twilight snarls, “I haven’t seen Shining Armor or Flash. Where are they?”       “Oh, Flash?” Nucor grins.       Flash and Shining Armor then rise up in the sky, with big vines binding them with Cosmos’ commands. The Volucris’ bodied villain looks down as she flies, smiling at the alicorns as mocking her brother’s demise. Twilight gasps in terror, as the vine starts to crush her loved ones.       “FLASH!” Twilight screams.       “COSMOS! YOU MONSTER!” Tails yells at the bodied Volucris villainess.       “I love that anger of yours…” Cosmos laughs, “Hold it when we fight.”       “LET MY BROTHER AND FRIEND GO!” Twilight shouts.       “YEAH! THEY’RE MY FRIENDS TOO!” Tails screams along with her.       “Really? Well, would you still fight them if they were… UNDEAD?” Nucor sneers, “Cosmos, would you?”       “WITH PLEASURE!” Cosmos cackles.       Cosmos then has the vine stab Flash into his veins, leaving him in squeals of screaming and pain. Twilight yells out a shriek of aghast, also having Tails feel high sympathy for her shock. TJ also drops down to his knees in disbelief.       “FLASH! NO!” Twilight cries.       Tails can’t believe it; it can’t be like the same thing all over again. Changing somepony into another creature is just something a bastard would do to manipulate them. This is also exactly what happened to Cheese Sandwich, which also distraught Pinkie Pie. The party pony can even see him in the zombie crowd now, whimpering.       Shining Armor struggle against the vine, as he sees the vine lower Flash onto the ground. The changed pony than stands by his master, looking blankly at Twilight. Twilight didn’t want to admit it, but this pony she loves… is no longer Flash.       “I’m ready to serve you my master…” Flash moans to Nucor.       “See, tragic… isn’t it?” Nucor laughs at Twilight.       “YOU WON’T WIN!” Discord screams.       “AS LONG AS MY FRIENDS ARE WITH ME, WE’LL DEFEAT YOU ALL TOGETHER!” Twilight shouts.       Nucor then makes a huge smoke cloud around him and Terrence, having both of them disappear immediately. Twilight and her friends looks around, wondering where they gone. She then sees that the zombies are rushing towards them, while Shining Armor is still bound to the vine.       “LET YOUR FIGHT BEGIN!” Nucor’s voice erupts in the sky.         Somewhere in the sky above the battle, the smoky ball that’s camouflaging Nucor and Terrence floats above Twilight fighting with Rainbow Dash and Applejack against the undead ponies. Nucor licks his teeth, as Terrence magically has a cigar appear in his mouth to smoke it. Nucor then leans close to his ear to whisper something at him.       “This is our chance to plan.” Nucor smiles, “Once my son changes, you’ll blast him.”       “I don’t plan, I already know the drill.” Terrence assures, “But at least I know what your son is capable of. I’ll get him for sure. Permission to attack my brother now.”       Nucor lowers the smoke shield.       “Go ahead.” Nucor chuckles.          Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle work as a team when they fight the nine zombies rushing towards them. When the first three of them come at Applejack, she hops back to miss their claw flinging hits. She then kicks her back legs upward from behind, targeting them to hit one in the chest. The move sends the zombie flying to knock over the other two underneath it.       Rainbow Dash was surprised to see that three of the other zombies are capable of flying with their pegasi wings. They pierce by the cyan pegasi, trying to swat her towards the ground. Rainbow Dash huffs, and swoops around do use her sonic rainboom, that stabs through the zombies to burn them into crisp smoldering corpses.       Twilight does her share of the fight as she goes against three more zombies. They expand their muscles with their sudden black magic, to try and hit Twilight with their coming attacks like wolves. Ian and Leo suddenly appear over Twilight, jumping over her back to kick the enemies in the face. Twilight guessed they followed Fireblaze and the others when they fell behind, and they now came at the perfect time. As Ian and Leo punch the two zombies, they grin at her. Twilight then smiles back, and then rushes up to the next zombie she sees. As the zombie rushes at her, Twilight has her horn spark out a giant ray that melts the monster. As it’s no more, she blew off the smoke from her horn, having her mouth air point upwards.       Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Discord, Spike, and Fluttershy are up against Nucor and Terrence, as they suddenly slam onto the ground after their brief discussion. The villains roar and rush at Fluttershy for starters, only having Discord block their attack with a punch. Terrence then slaps Discord in the face with a might punch, having Rarity come upwards to kick the evil brother in the cheek, then breaking his jaw. Terrence then slaps back, knocking out a tooth from her mouth. Fluttershy then flies upward, having Spike on her back. The dragon breathes fire out of his mouth to hit Nucor, as she keeps throwing punches to slow down his stamina. As Nucor scowls at this, he strikes back to knock her and the dragon back to the ground. Pinkie Pie then uses karate moves to kick Nucor behind the back constantly. She then flings upwards with a backward jump to kick Terrence in the legs, having him trip to his feet. Discord then hits his brother on top of his head.       Tails, TJ, and Mokuba then have their move to fight against Flash and Cosmos. Tails felt good fighting the crazy bitch, but Flash… he was Twilight’s groom. Well, this moment of the fight will have the fox express his deep emotions, and Flash IS NO LONGER mortal.       With that, the foxes come against Flash whom his rushing at them like a super villain. The zombie pony raises up his fist to knock TJ in the chest, breaking one of his ribs. TJ wobbles at the pain, as Tails uses a Kamehameha wave to hit the zombie in the back. TJ also has enough strength to jump away from the attacks and vicious stomps as soon as the zombie gets back up to it’s feet.       Mokuba fights against Tail’s archrival Cosmos. The Volucris bodied witch has her vines magically appear as they fly at the filly prince. Mokuba then has his sword pulled out, cutting and tearing apart the weeds that try to grab him. Bloody ooze also tears through the holes of the plants, as Mokuba jumps through the mix of wet red and green. He then is front of Cosmos, using his forehead to strike onto her own. She falls back, then throwing herself up to kick him into the chest. Mokuba falls back, having his sword held up again to continue fighting.        Fireblaze, Coco, Blade, and Skull stand still as they look at their only opponent in front of them. Cheese Sandwich. Sure, he’s aided by his zombie slaves, but is there ANYTHING he can do. Still, Fireblaze knew Nucor planted something in him. Deciding to find out for himself, he charges at Cheese to declare the starting fight.       FLASH!       The light pushes Fireblaze back, as he sees the sudden change going on inside the zombie. Coco hugs Blade in fear, as Skull squints to see Cheese’s body formation shifting. It’s all too suspicious.       “Nucor planned ahead to help me do this….” the zombie Cheese laughs.       Cheese then comes out of the light, bigger and badder. Skull growls at how hard this is going to be. Cheese Sandwich is now a huge fuath, a bloody creature with a dinosaur skull, black claws, and a huge purple tyrannosaurus body and tail. > 'Simply Magnificent!!' The Mightiest Warrior, Super Tajato > --------------------------------------------------------------------------     Tails and TJ were nervous like rabbits, just when Cosmos grows stronger to try and make them look pitiful. Tails perks his ears, now sensing the calls of fear coming from other ponies, just when more zombies start to imprison them and lock them in tight cages close to Nucor’s base, to save them for their meal. Tail’s special eyesight then zooms into one of the victims slamming against the bars with the other ponies. He can see one of Applejack’s family members and friends in distress, even BRAEBURN. The undead jackasses now imprisoned the cowboy pony, the one that assisted Tails from a while back. Cosmos smirks at Tails ability to see Braeburn’s demise, also looking down at Applejack fighting in battle.       “A shame, yet so hilarious.” Cosmos giggles, “We already have our undead lovelies invading his home village of Appleloosa right now.”        Tails snarls at Cosmos’ insolence. He then grabs his earing, turning one of its gadget dials. TJ looks at him in shock.       “What are you doing?” TJ asks.       “I programed a special ability for our earrings to fuse both our bodies together during battle.” Tails tells him, as both of them still float in the air with Cosmos, “We have to fuse now.”       “But… it’s risky. We might not go back to normal.” TJ warns.       “It’s better to do that than letting that witch win!” Tails insists.       TJ sighs, seeing his point of view.       “Language, foxy.” Cosmos said, overhearing him, I’m already winning, so give it up.”       “In your dreams.” Tails scowls, turning the earing to its last knob.       GLEAM!       Cosmos floats back, having the aura blind her eyes. In that moment, Tails’ and TJ’s souls and bodies disappear, then having their visibility sizzle and fuzz. The two bodies then peacefully collide. BAM! Cosmos comes back forward, as she gnaws her teeth to see whom she’s up against. The foxes’ fusion technique worked, and the whole fox body is an orange kitsune with a samurai outfit. The whole golden gleam around its fur glows, as the fused being starts to speak.       “I and WE, are TAJATO!” the golden fox roars.       “So I see.” Cosmos said, impressed, “But what can you do? Appleloosa is now done for by now, as of Manehatten as well.”       Tajato snarls at her ignorance and meanness.       “So, should we finish this?” the golden fox asks.        “Indeed,” Cosmos smirked. “Although I doubt your speed will be enough to take on me.”     The fused Kitsune smirked. “Oh, that’s not all I have planned. I have one more trick, or two, up my sleeve!”     He raised his fists into the air. “TA-DA…..GO!!!” he yelled, pulling his fists to the side. He began to clench his teeth as yellow electric volts flashed around his body. His hair grew spiky like lightening bolts, then the fur hairs grew even longer and turned yellow.     Cosmos laughs, having Tajato confused.     “Please. You think you’re the ONLY one who can do that?” Cosmos smirks.     “WHAT?” Tajato gasps.     Cosmos then has a huge flash beam around her, going through the same process that Tails and TJ gone through. As her body and hair glow yellow, her eyes become rose red. Her fangs expand, as she grins at the golden fused fox.     “Say hello to the Super Kitsunian 3. I’ve been working on it for quite a while.” she grinned.     “How is that possible?” Tajato asks, “You hardly had contact with me to know my powers ahead of time. HOW? HOW DID YOU GET THAT POWER?”     “I just absorbed whatever came out of Celestia, Luna, and Cadence. Obviously I had to take their formations too.” Cosmos smirked, “Oh, and in case if you didn’t know, I drained their energy after making a surprise trap for them in the Crystal Empire.”     “No…” Tajato whimpers.     Twilight is down below, and she can hear the discussion going on with the bad and good forms. She can’t believe it either. The villains actually planned this all out real well. Celestia, Luna, and Cadence. All the citizens. What will become of them now?     Discord even looks up with Fluttershy and Rarity, as they see Cosmos turning into a grotesque silhouette and form of Celestia. The monster laughs, as Pinkie and Applejack look, crying in shock and horror. The zombies launch at them still, as the two friends kept dodging.       As for Tajato, he’s furious. Real furious. He now want’s revenge…       Suddenly, Tajato began to shake, engulfed in red lightning. Then, he rose higher up in the sky at full power.       “Cosmos…you’ll pay for each one of them!” he screamed angrily, charging at her. He repeatedly threw punches at her, but she dodged with every chance she got.     “STAND STILL SO I CAN ANNIHILATE YOU, DAMMIT!!” he screamed, getting madder by the minute.     “You’ve got quite a temper. What would Celestia say about that?” Cosmos smirked.     Tajato decided to calm down, and use his head. Still, he has to fight. Maybe he should keep throwing out his hits, just to distract her.     “You just keep on flapping your trap while I smack you around like a punching bag.” Tajato snapped, zipping away and forward.     Cosmos zipped back as well when more punches are throwed. As much as Tajato hates this too, he lets Cosmos hit him back, just so he can lure her into a surprise. Cosmos then has her poisonous wings extend, as they fling around to try and scratch the golden fox, only having him float back to miss.     “Gee, I sure got some good distance, and in only four seconds! That shape-shifting Slow-Mo isn’t so tough.” Tajato laughed, turning around, only to be grabbed by Cosmos, who raised her hand to his face.     Tajato scowls at HER surprise move. What to do? Cosmos is now grinning as she strengthens her prisoning grip on his ankles.     “Bye-bye,” Cosmos grinned evilly as her hooves started to spark. Tajato’s face had terror written all over it.     “WAH! YOU BITCH!” Tajato screams, “I’M NOT LETTING YOU WIN! NOT WITHOUT A FAIR FIGHT!”     As the energy blast sent him hurtling through the air, he spins around like a malfunctions mecha machine. Luckily, he managed to stop himself in midair.     “I suppose I have another tactic in my incredible plan for victory. Heh, heh, heh…” Tajato giggles.     He struck several poses, left arm up, right arm down, and one left leg forward, while saying these next few words:     “SUPER…GHOST…KAMIKAZE…ATTACK…!!!”     He then spat out shadowy silhouettes from behind his back, having something take Cosmos like surprise. It’s a mix of a artistic show and pure battle horror, when Tajato finally manages to create eight ghostly clones of himself.     “What is this?!” Cosmos demands.     “Your symbol of defeat.” Tajato grins, “Ghosts, HUDDLE! TACKLE!”     The ghosts flashed as they were falling stars, and dart towards Cosmos to strike her at her wings to topple her over. Sensing their other attacks, she flies backward to miss the next three attempts. She then flew back a few more directions before flying back up to destroy one ghost with her aura.     “Doing good.” Tajato admits, creeping up behind her, “But you can do better.”     Six of his ghosts then kick her on the back, having her pushed back to turn around.     “YOU’RE A INTERFERING ASS!” Cosmos shrieks.     “BUT YOU’RE WORSE!” Tajato screams back, “I FIGHT BECAUSE I CRAVE JUSTICE! YOU FIGHT FOR KILLING, SO THAT LEAVES ME WITH ONE OPTION!”     The ghosts then drive themselves at Cosmos, grabbing onto her and explodes in contact.     “EAT THIS!” Tajato screams like a child, throwing in rapid punches.     “DEADLY MACHINEGUN MULTIPUNCH!!!” he yelled while doing so, pummeling Cosmos thoroughly.     Then, he jumped up, and kicked her in the face, causing an explosion.     “DYNAMITE KICK-DETONATE!!” he grinned.       Cosmos floated back a tad bit, and flies at least one hundred miles per hour to try and hit Tajato. The golden fox flies past her to avoid the move, having her hold back to look him in the eyes. She can feel blood drip from her teeth slowly.       “NONSTOP DIE-DIE BLASTERS!!!” Tajato shouts, as he floated above her and started shooting multiple energy blasts from his gloved hands.     Tajato then lands on the ground, and moved back from Cosmos. Cosmos lands hard on the ground to her hooves, nearly close to defeat. She was very strong as hell before, but now she’s getting a taste of her own medicine from a hero.       “You’re ruining my plans!” Cosmos sneers.       “I’m doing the right thing!” Tajato screams, “NOW, TAKE THIS, AND BEGONE FROM THIS WORLD!! ”       Then, he cupped his hands and drew them back.     “SUPER….KA….ME….HA….ME…..HAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!” he screamed, launching an energy blast from his palms, disintegrating Cosmos entirely.       “NOOOOOOOO!” Cosmos shrieks.       As Cosmos becomes ash, the cages formed and held up by her magic melt from far away, freeing the mortal pony prisoners that include Braeburn, and also the buffalo Indian tribe that includes Little Strongheart. The free ponies than fight and bloody up the evil zombies for escaping, as Tajato can see in the distance. Soon… the fusion…       The power starts to wear off as Tails and TJ go back to the ground, going back to their separate bodies. Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Applejack who are nearby come over to see if they’re okay. Twilight than hugs Tails at his part of helping her defeat Cosmos.       “Well, that takes care of that.” Tails grinned, staring out over the horizon of the zombie battle.       TJ nearly fell over staring at the deep gash from their energy blast, and the large holes from their other energy blasts. The fox cousin also wonders how everypony else is holding up. They still have more fighting to do.         As the battle Ranges, Skull, Fireblaze, Coco, Blade keep fighting Cheese Sandwich in his cannibalistic dinosaur form. Then Skull has the aura glow around him, as he triggers himself to turn into his reaper form at this time. He looks at the monster, wondering if turning into that creature is all a diversion.       “You don’t even know which attack to begin with.” Skull scoffs.       Skull was unaware, but Terrence is about to interfere as soon as he evaded from Discord with a surprise camouflage attack. The evil brother needed that time to find and destroy Skull, just like he promised to Nucor. Now that Terrence sees him, his curiosity grows as he sees him turn into a reaper pony. He grins, now knowing what he craves to do.       Discord, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash then escape the huge fog that Terrence trapped them inside. The three of them then find Skull confronting Cheese in his new form, with Blade, Coco, and Fireblaze by him. Discord then weeps as he sees his brother make the huge glowing aura in his palms.      “Time for my cue…” Terrence sneers.       FLAM!       A giant ray of blue flaming balls are then blasting towards Skull, as he looks up to see the calamity aiming at him.       “SKULL!” Fluttershy screams.          Determined to protect her friend, she flies over quickly to block the attack. It was unsuccessful, as the rays quickly bang up and hit both Fluttershy and Skull. They fall back through the air, having the monster Cheese Sandwich slap the two of them when they near him. Both ponies then fall through the ground, having their heads forced to dig through the hard soil as they slow their landing.       “GUYS!” Rainbow Dash screams in horror.       “GOT THEM!” Terrence laughs.       “DON’T GO NEAR THEM!” Discord screams, flying to his brother.       As the lord of chaos flies to him, Terrence punches him aside, going towards Fluttershy and Skull then. He floats over them, snickering in delight. He then has his human hand shift into a long machete blade, as it’s connected to his body.       “Discord’s student, now a weak pile of shit.” Terrence chuckles, “How does it feel?”       He then raises his blade hand, ready to pierce Fluttershy and Skull with the killing attack. Then, something goes in front of the victims. GARBLE!       BLANG!       The stab suddenly makes a fiery wave, pushing Terrence back hard through the air, sending him crashing far away from the heroes. It was good for now, but as the dust clears, Fluttershy and Skull look up to see what happened to Garble after he protected them from the full attack. They’re safe, HE’S STABBED!       As he bleeds non-stop, his knees bend down, as he topples over to lie down on the ground.       Spike came over to check on Fluttershy and Skull by coincidence. Then he gasps as he sees what happened to Garble, as do Fluttershy and Skull. Garble is about to make his last breath.       “GARBLE!” the three of them scream.       Discord, Rainbow Dash, and Fireblaze then near to him as well, shaking their heads at his severe injury to death.       “No, Garble…” Spike moans.       “Why?” Skull asks.       “Because you’re part of their hope to stop this.” Garble tells him, “I did what I had to do…”       “No. Don’t leave us…” Spike begs.       “Keep fighting… and…. win….” Garble sighs, making his last words.       Discord rattles out a cry, as it was too good to be true. Fireblaze understood the sacrifice to this battle. Garble, the best dragon general… is dead.       As all the ponies cry, a sudden dark cloud floats over them with evil laughter echoing. Garble is then raised overhead, and Fluttershy knew what’s taking him. She jumped up to try and grab him down, but the dead body was jolted upward to the cloud immediately. The evil face of Nucor then becomes visible to the gang.       “I’ll take him…” Nucor laughs.       In the giant cloud, a gap is made to show Garble’s change on top of the heroes. The dark magic is already doing it’s work, as Garble starts to moan. He’s now an undead slave!       “NO!” Fireblaze screams.       Terrence suddenly appears through the gap, right by Garble’s body. He must have gotten up from his stuck spot after the attack, just to see the looks on their faces when Garble turns mindlessly evil. He even looks down at Discord and Fluttershy, sticking up his middle finger.       “I’m sure we’ll enjoy our new toy!” Terrence cackles.       Nucor then disappears with his new slave, as Terrence looks down at the furious group. The fog clears up, leaving a hint of silence, as echoes of the battle still sound. Rainbow Dash almost couldn’t even make a retorting insult, she’s just sad… sad…       “Do any of you wish to fight me still?” Terrence demands, “I’m looking forward to kill someone….”       “I’m… going… to KILL YOU!” Fireblaze suddenly said, “BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE DEALING WITH!”       Then, the red aura starts to glow around his dragon-like body.       “What’s this?” Terrence asks.       Then Fireblaze went into his huge red dragon form, as he builds up his angry energy he needs. Then, he went fast at his speed, as he starts tackling Terrance, beginning to punching him hard. Terrence fights back, grabbing Fireblaze by his wings, and swinging him to have him hit the ground.       “Now that is dragon rage.” Rainbow Dash admits.       “I know of it.” Spike agrees, “I had it before, and it wasn’t so good. I just hope Fireblaze survives this.” > Between Brothers > --------------------------------------------------------------------------     Fireblaze is grinding his teeth, feeling the sparks in his mouth fly out when growling in fury. He then bends over to get back up to his feet, since he’s still in dragon form. Next, he dodges Terrence’s chaos blasts that crashes right by him. Fireblaze then turns to look at the evil brother, having fire blow out his nose. He then rushes up to him to grab him by the tail, and swing him around like a battering ram, than lifting him up to get him slammed on the ground.       “HOME RUN!” Fireblaze insults to the villain.       “Nice.” Rainbow Dash commented on Fireblaze’s move.       Terrence lifts himself up by levitating into the sky to punch Fireblaze in his mouth. Fireblaze is resilient though, as he then grabs Terrence by his arms and throws him to a big mountain wall, having his back snap a tad as he collides at the hard rock. Terrence screams in irritation as he tears out of the mountain hole.       “THAT DOES IT!” Terrence screams.       He then has his black aura increase higher around his body, as he powers up to fly back at Fireblaze. The dragon formed pony then flies back, having his palms push forward to blast a giant ray at the villain. Terrence then misses the blast, having his black colored ray repeat itself constantly to try and hit the dragon pony monster, but to no avail. Fireblaze can hardly see the rest of the fight going down below him as well.       Eventually, Twilight came back together with Spike, Discord, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy. She comes by Pinkie, Spike, and Rainbow, as they fight against one half section of the zombie army marching toward them. The zombies’ looks were vicious, but Twilight manages to push them back with her orb shaped rays. She even transfers some magic to Spike, to have him cast bigger fireballs that melt some zombies who try to claw him. Pinkie and Rainbow then combine their attacks to make PARTY SONIC RAINBOOMS! Lame as it sounds, it’s actually badass. The way it works is that Pinkie shoots Rainbow out of her party canon, having it aimed at some of the mindless undeads. Once the canon shoots Rainbow, the cyan pegasi goes real fast and has the rainbow boom push back all the zombies in a far distance. Some of the aura wave also splits the zombies in half, having their bodies bloodied apart with the blast.       Discord, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack then work at their side of the team. Discord uses his tail to knock down the rabid zombies trying to take him down, as Fluttershy punches some that fall back from the tail collision. She punches them on their spines, as dodging their spiked punches. Rarity acts like a sissy when it comes to being elegant, but it doesn’t stop her from shooting her magical rays. She has the rays turn some zombies into crystal ice, having them frozen on the spot. The opportunity also has Applejack break the frozen statues, destroying the enemies completely. She then uses her lasso as a whip to lash the zombies away, while also tripping backward with jumps to avoid their wing flying bites, as some pegasi zombies swoop down to try and attack her.       Blade is close by the heroes, giving Skull’s father a piece of his mind as well. The vampire-hunting pony kicks Nucor backwards, while Nucor throws back several punches and kicks altogether and combined. Nucor especially hisses in anger as Blade punches him in the jaw.       Close to Blade’s battle, Spike is fighting alongside Twilight until a sudden punch strikes him. He looks up, to see…. THE ZOMBIE GARBLE. The once dragon acquaintance is now an enemy, much to Spike’s fear.       “Garble… if part of you is alive… please… fight this.” Spike begs.       “I work for Nucor now.” the zombie dragon moans.       As Garble twitches his hand, his zombie powers has his arm morph into a giant golden mace, almost looking like it’s covered in slimy blood. He raises it up to have it slam into Spike, but…       FLASH!       A sudden ray appears to push Garble back. The ray came from Rarity, from what Spike notices. She keeps blasting her magic at Garble to protect Spike.       “STOP THAT AT ONCE!” Rarity shouts at the zombie.       Terrence is still up above fighting Fireblaze with his black magic. The dragooned morphed pony kept flying backwards to snuff out the attacks with his flaming breath. Then, the evil brother of Discord looks down to see Rarity pushing back the zombie dragon, just as she keeps protecting Spike.       “Rarity has magic being pushed to far…” Terrence whispers to himself, grinning.       Fireblaze rushes over to try another attack on Terrence, but the enemy punches Fireblaze right into the skull by surprise. The attack sends Fireblaze straight to the ground, having a loud rumble sound as he lands. Terrence then looks at Garble struggling to get up, as Rarity and Spike look at Fireblaze in shock.       “Garble, deal with Fireblaze and Spike. I’ll deal with my brother… by dealing with one of his friends…” Terrence orders telepathically to the zombie dragon.       The zombie dragon then flashes over to Spike, just as Fireblaze returns to normal. As Spike jumps back to miss one attack, Garble strikes harder and harder at him, having blood come out of his nose and mouth. As Rarity attempts to rush over and help Spike, Terrence suddenly flashes in front of her, blocking her way.       “Hello, sexy peach.” Terrence sneers, “I see you have magic, magic I CAN USE…”       “STAY BACK!” Rarity screams, as she blasts Terrence with her magic.       She was confident that the ray would hit him good, but no. Terrence was able to block the attack with his left human handed palm. He then leans over to touch her head.       “Let’s see if you can handle…. THE DARKNESS.” Terrence chuckles.       As Spike was beaten more by Garble, he turns to see what Terrence is doing to Rarity.       “RARITY! NO!” Spike screams.       Rarity winches and jolts back and forth like a beheaded chicken, as the dark energy starts to cover her. She screams in pain and horror, not wanting the evil being transmitted into her. Terrence kept his grip on her forehead to make sure she didn’t get away from the casting.       She wept.       She struggled.       Then… she stopped.       It was then that the soft crying… turning into villainous laughter…       As Twilight comes over to save Spike from Garble, she looks at the change in Rarity. She’s fearing it most in the change of her, knowing it’s like what happened when Nightmare Moon took control of her. Now, Terrence has…       “Hehehehehehe! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!” Rarity laughs, now manipulated and magically covered in dark aura, “NOW, NIGHTMARE RARITY IS BACK!”       “Oh no…” Twilight gasps.       “Well, I thought for a moment that Luna would make a better nightmare caster.” Terrence hums, “But, any nightmare bitch like RARITY will do nicely.”       “If I may sir, I require an assistant… LIKE SPIKE!” Nightmare Rarity roars.       She then turns to Spike, having him scared with looking at her.       “You wouldn’t hurt me, right Spikey Wikey?” she asks.       “I can’t hurt you.” he admits, “But I can turn you back.”       “That won’t work out.” Nightmare Rarity sighs.       A huge magic shadow then lifts up above her, as it flies towards Twilight protecting Spike. The powerful shadow then knocks Twilight aside, sending her crashing toward a big rock. She then screams, as she sees the dark magic covering her number one assistant, and best friend.       “SPIKE! NO!” Twilight screams.       Discord looks up to see this in horror, as do Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fireblaze, Coco, Blade, Skull, and even Tails. TJ even snarls at the evil change forced onto Rarity. Spike was screaming for almost ten seconds, but his memories then become brief and weak…       Then, once the dark magical transfer was done, the young dragon rises. The change also changed his height, even his maturity. He’s now NIGHTMARE SPIKE, and he’s standing by the possessed Rarity to protect her.       “YOU MONSTER!” Discord yells at Terrence, “BROTHER OR NO BROTHER, ME AND MY FRIENDS WILL STOP YOU!”       “Well, you finally got some backbone bro.” Terrence laughs, “COME AT ME!”       Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack then come by Discord to help him. Twilight feels weak and hurt that she has to fight her brainwashed friends, but there’s no choice. The other thing to remember is not to kill them. Whatever she and the others need to do to snap Rarity and Spike back to sanity, they need to try.       Discord then goes first when running, charging himself up to raise his fist in the air. As Terrence runs over with Spike and Rarity, Twilight runs by Discord to have the rest of her friends follow her. Now that they’re combining fighting moves with Discord, it’s good chaos versus disturbing chaos. > The End of Garble > --------------------------------------------------------------------------    Biting her lip, Twilight tries her best to use her magic to get Rarity and Spike back to their senses when stepping away from their swiping attacks. Spike however, scratches her horn, and has a bloody infection prevent her from making any more rays. Applejack then runs up to push Spike away, keeping the brainwashed opponent away from Twilight.       “SPIKE! PLEASE!” Applejack shouts.       Twilight weeps, as she looks up weakly at Spike.       “Spike, I’m one of your best friends…” Twilight cries.       “I WORK FOR NIGHTMARE RARITY!” Spike roars.       The young dragon then breathes out a huge gust of green flame to strike Twilight and Applejack. Both of them scream, but Discord runs to catch them, helping them dodge the attack on time. Smoke fades and rises fro the ground as soon as the gusted flames go low.       “RARITY! YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO SNAP OUT OF IT TOO!” Twilight calls to her, “THIS ISN’T YOU!”       “IT IS NOW TWILIGHT!” Nightmare Rarity laughs, “YOU’RE NOTHING MORE THAN AN ENEMY TO ME!”       As she says this, she blasts her magic to try and strike Discord and Applejack, but Twilight pops out to block the dark aura with her magic. She then blasts back another ray to push Nightmare Rarity down. The enemy then gets up to fly over and hit the alicorn, but Twilight flies back to turn away from the punch.          Across from Twilight’s fight, Fireblaze comes against the now-zombie Garble. He flies upward, still shifting a it after being normal again. That also helps him miss the bite attack when the zombie flings it’s head straight up. Fireblaze then looks down to Garble in sadness.       “Sorry old friend.” Fireblaze weeps, “But you’re no longer Garble. Something has to be done…”       Then he flew up high into the air, going through the horizons to touch the highest point he can get. He allows the zombie dragon to catch up with him in it’s slow speed, just so his friends can be safe in the surfaced distance. He then flies down, speeding up as blur and red colors of aura begin to glow around his body.       POW!       As he hits Garble at the final moment, Fireblaze screams.       “FUSION RAINBOW!”       When the attack causes Garble’s body to burn up, a huge explosion wave rumbles in the sky, pushing the clouds back. There was also a huge firework ray, until it disappears in a brief second. Then, Fireblaze moans as he sees Garble’s ash floating towards the ground.       “You did good…” a mysterious voice said.       Fireblaze looks up, to see THE GHOST OF GARBLE. his spirit is finally free from the enslaved zombie body he was forced into. The dragon general smiles at his friend.       “Thanks for that. Thanor will also find a way to help you fix this, I guarantee it.” Garble vows, “Skull’s powers will be the key too, that’s for sure. Hey, help him destroy his bastard father, would ya?”        Fireblaze nods, smiling. His promise is the least thing he can make to please the spirit of an old friend. As Garble fades to the distance, he sheds a tear.       “Bye cousin…” Fireblaze sighs.       The dragon pony then swoops downward to go back to the fight. > Terrence Defeated!! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The main five ponies are doing their best to fight alongside Discord when Terrence hits the six of them all together, strongly and meanly. The good versus the bad is probably one of the toughest fights to go through when you’re related to an enemy. Twilight and Discord both blast magical rays from their horns to try and strike Terrence, but the evil brother twirls upward, and dives down to claw them in their chests. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy then fly overhead Terrence, going faster with their flying speed to try and confuse him, being able to stun him with throwing punches while he doesn’t notice. Applejack and Pinkie Pie then contribute by using the lasso to pull tight together with their teeth. As they old the hairy string in place, they rush to Terrence’s feet, up to the point they contact the tugged rope that he trips over to sprain his ankle slightly to the left.       Terrence then screams, forcing himself to jolt back up. The figuring pose he’s giving his body is twisting and bending with fury. He then cocks his head as he approaches back to Discord, Twilight, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow huffing their breath.       “WHEN WILL ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I’M STRONGER THAN ALL OF YOU?” Terrence lashes out.       “NOT AT ALL!” Discord protests, “I’M NOT GIVING UP UNTIL YOU’RE SENT BACK TO WHERE YOU BELONG!”       “Oh really?” Terrence chuckles.       To Discord’s shock, Terrence turns one of his human hands into a metal ball mace. He then uses it to PUNCH Discord straight to the ground, having his Twilight and the others scream to come to his aid. Then, Terrence punches TWILIGHT, PINKIE, RAINBOW, APPLEJACK, and FLUTERSHY all together. They then land by Discord, wheezing at the painful hit they received from Terrence’s powerful strength. The twisted brother laughs at their demise, calling them cowards.       “We should really end this now.” Terrence sighs carelessly.       As TJ aids Tails  to his wounds, he turns to see Terrence preparing to finish their friends off.       “TAILS!” TJ gasps in shock, “OUR FRIENDS!”       Tails screams a short yell, and winches in agony at the sudden pain he received from his previous fight. He then looks up at TJ, as he puts on his earing. This time, Tails is thinking of using the earing power alone. He wants to deal with Terrence personally.       “Tails!” TJ warns, “You already just…”       “I have to do it!” Tails insists, getting up.       As he walks, he concentrates on Terrence’s jelly moving body of villainy. He presses on the button on his earing, ready to activate his change. The glow ensues around his body…       FLASH!       Tails is now muscular all over, bigger than his original height. He stomps over faster and faster, having the glowing grow brighter in his palms. Terrence stomps his foot on top of Discord, Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow, and Fluttershy’s backs, as he raises his weapon to make the kill.       “Didn’t see me coming, did you?” Tails playfully mocks at Terrence when surprising him from behind, “NOW STOP!”       He then interrupts Terrence’s evil deed on time, throwing a muscular punch straight to his jaw. As Terrence falls back, his arm turns back to normal as he weakens. Tails then storms over to him again, picking him up by his shoulders.       Terrence snarls at Tails.       “What are you doing?” he demands.       “Ending you…” Tails states, “TODAY!”       Tails punches him in the face again, having him fall to the ground once more. The fox is expecting to gain his respect from such force. Instead, Terrence wasn’t scared, he laughs.       “OH! IS HITTING ALL YOU CAN DO?” Terrence smirks, “I still have powerful magic like you have right now!”       Tails screams in anger, leaping up to kick Terrence into his kneecaps. He then has his fist thrust and flick, knocking Terrence’s teeth out of his mouth. Tails then throws another punch, which surprisingly sends him flying to crash his back into an entrance of a nearby cave. Terrence gets out, surprised that Tails already saved that much power to fight him. Determined to win, he picks up a hug rock right by him, and prepares to hurl it at the fox for a vicious kill move. Before he can throw it, Tails flashes behind him, and delivers a kick to his back, having him mislead the rock in a different direction as he’s sent to the ground.       Impossible, Tails planned ahead…       “What the hell are you?” Terrence asks.       “Haven’t you gotten it through your skull already?” Tails snarls, “I’m known as the kitsune of Ponyville. I’m protecting my friends in order to defeat the likes of YOU! I AM JUSTICE! I AM THE SUPER KITSUNIAN, TAILS PROWER!!       With that, Tails roars and strengthens the aura flashing around his body. As he powers up, Terrence scoff and makes a magic shield to cover himself. However, Tails’ aura cracks and destroys his shield, having Terrence wobble in fear of his power. "IT'S TERRENCE-TRASHING TIME! COWABUNGA!!!!" Tails screams loudly.       Tails then crunches his fist into a balled hand, and punches him into the eye. Then he makes a mighty kick to send him crashing back into the cave wall. Terrence now feels he respects Tails for his bravery, but he still wants to defeat him. Tails knew that Terrence can’t win either. The fox has to protect his friends at all costs!         As Discord helps his friends to their feet, Nightmare Rarity stomps over to them with the brainwashed Spike assisting her. She laughs, as she has a dark barrier imprison them, having them trapped. Twilight looks through the barrier, scared of what she might do next.       “I’m a bit hungry Spike.” Nightmare Rarity said, “How about we have them for a nice…. snack?”       “Shall we start with their souls?” Spike recommends.       “Why not?” Nightmare Rarity laughs.       As she has the ray on her horn ready to kill the prisoners hugging each other, something suddenly gets in her way.            “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” the appearing hero yells.       “Mokuba…!!” Twilight smiles.       The filly prince in is front of Rarity, having an angry frown on his face. He’s in the perfect distance between his friends and the brainwashed pony and dragon. He stomps his foot constantly for battle preparation.       “The little prince.” Nightmare Rarity laughs, “How amusing.”       “If you want them, you have to challenge me first!” Mokuba sneers.       “Challenge?” Nightmare Rarity asks, “Now you’re getting me interested. How do you wish to fight?”       “With a bet.” Mokuba answers, “You want interesting, how about this? If I win by bare hooves in this combat, your evil soul must be released from Rarity and Spike.”       “And if I win?” Nightmare Rarity demands.       “I’ll… join you in the darkness…” Mokuba sighs.       “WHAT? NO!” Discord cries behind him.       “All right then.” Nightmare Rarity chuckles, “Let’s begin.”       Nightmare Rarity zooms to strike Mokuba into his jaw, hoping to crack it open and inject the zombie infection to change him. Then, Mokuba makes a quick move that nopony else can expect. The crystal fighting stick he used before in the vampire battle, it’s hidden behind his back.       CRACK!       FIZZLE!       The sudden strike from Mokuba has took over Nightmare Rarity’s pride, soon turning her back into old Rarity. The evil spirit screams, as the magic from the nightmare power also starts to leave Spike. The dragon and unicorn soon fain from the might blow by Mokuba, staggering as they lay on separate parts of the ground. The barrier than lowers around Twilight and her friends, as Rarity flutters her eyes to look up at Mokuba.       “Mokuba?” Rarity asks, “What happened?”       “You’re back…” Mokuba smiles.       Spike gets up too, finally realizing he was possessed. It was a weird feeling of coming back, when also feeling the tingling in his arms and feet. Then, he looks up at the sky, gasping in horror. Terrence is up above them, bigger than Discord’s size. The young dragon then turns to see that Tails is knocked unconscious in the nearby cave, just by one of Terrence’s sickening blows.       “I took the time to rid of his interference.” Terrence giggles, talking about Tails, “Now, I can’t have the main six, brother, filly, and dragon out of my sight again.”       Once again, a barrier is made, only this time, it’s BIGGER! It’s even surrounding all nine characters, with Tails outside and pinned down in the cave. The aura holding down the foxes’ wrists and ankles is painful to Tails. Yet, the fox warrior wonders, where is T.J.? He hasn’t seen him too much so far during the fight. He can hop that his cousin should try something…       Terrence cackles as the heroes inside the barrier try to find a way out. The evil brother also expands a huge aura in his palms to create a nuke-like spirit bomb, just with enough darkness to kill Twilight and her friends. Twilight tries blasting apart the barrier with the magic coming from her horn, but the rays bounce back, ineffective. She looks up to see the eyes of Terrence, so cold and emotionless. She then looks at Discord, hugging Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, as he also blames himself for being evil. She can assume that because of the things he done that may have carried a trait to Terrence, but that’s not true. That fault is not Discord’s, it’s Nucor’s.       “Let’s play a little game…” Terrence calls down to Twilight, “It’s called, ‘see how long you can cry’! I’ll start counting!”       Twilight snarls at his sadistic pleasure, as Terrence begins to throw down the bomb.       PLAM!       A sudden wave blasts Terrence, having the aura disappear from his hands instantly. He looks back to see TJ floating in front of him, muscular just like Tails. He even holds the aura cuffs that were made to imprison his cousin, as Tails floats by his other fox pal.       “I hid myself to come out at the right time.” TJ smirks, “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”       “Uh oh…” Terrence huffs, now knowing what’s going to happen.       The fox then extend their palms forward. "KA....ME....HA....ME...."       “HAAAAAA!” they scream, as they send out their combined Kamehameha wave.       The huge blue ray collides with Terrence, having the pain increase around his body. The burn is good, and HARD. Terrence can suddenly feel the stone coming up through his body, as he yells out swears when being turned back into a statue. No screams or pleas, just yelling “FUCK!!”       Twilight and Fluttershy knew altogether that Terrence has no heart, and feel relief when there is one last BOOM!       The rumble in the air claims Terrence’s defeat, as the statue falls to the ground. Once landed, the ray dims and disappears from the foxes. Tails and TJ then land, having the main six come by them to see what they done to Terrence. Discord smirks at the sight of his brother.        “Good riddance.” Discord spat, sticking out his tongue. > The Death of Nucor > --------------------------------------------------------------------------  Nucor has observed how the fight went, dismayed at Terrence’s defeat. He was THIS close to getting even with Twilight by having her disposed of, just so he can have more zombies go further with being slowed. So now, he stomps hard on the ground in front of her and the rest of the gang, looking up for a fight.       “Well, it’s time we took this to the next level!” Nucor yells.       Twilight gasps as she sees something accelerate in his expanding veins. His muscles begin to grow unnaturally, as if hormones are growing up to early in the human body. It was a matter of minutes that Nucor is the same height as Discord’s. He’s a bigger zombie, and he looks dangerous with the veined muscles and razor sharp fur spiking out as his skin. He looks contagious to touch, but it’s not impossible to go against him.       Skull stays by Twilight, still scared of his own monster of a father. Discord just scowled at Nucor, as Rainbow Dash joined along with him. Nucor than looks at Skull, his own son.       “YOU WILL JOIN MY UNDEAD ARMY!” the evil big zombie promises him.       “NO I WON’T! NEITHER WILL MY FRIENDS!” Skull screams.       Skull then steps aside from Twilight, casting his reaper form to be ready to fight.       “I’M GOING TO END YOU!” Nucor cackles, “Cheese Sandwich and Flash, deal with the main six ponies and their friends. Have the zombies help you as well. I’LL DEAL WITHMY DISOBIDIENT SON!”       “Yes master.” Cheese and Flash moan.       Twilight Sparkle then notices Shining Armor is imprisoned in one last tightening grip by Cosmos’ remaining vine in the distance, and twenty zombies are surrounding him. Running to his aid, Fluttershy, Discord, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, and Spike join beside her to crash through the zombies, just so they can break trough the zombie barrier urchins heading toward them. Twilight and Spike start with shooting magic and fire out of their mouths, to melt the zombies in front into ash. They at least strike five, as both miss their vicious mouth attacks of their own by running around their barreled moves. They circle around their hitting punches, as they then pass Discord, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie jumping to action.       The four of them start with having Discord and Fluttershy start with flying low to knock the zombies down by their ankles. Fluttershy then knocks out their teeth and rips their jaws off with strength, having black blood squish out from the flesh holes. Discord then uses his tail to knock out more of the other vampires, at least four. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie then share the party canon to not shoot huge items, but as a battering ram. The cyan pegasi even swings it fast and angry at such speed to crack the zombies’ skulls to kill them, while Pinkie takes her turn to ROLL the canon over the undead to crush and squash them into lifeless pancakes.       Applejack then works alongside Rarity as they use problem-solving methods to fight, just like during the disastrous sleepover. Rarity also sees an opening to Shining Armor and his imprisoning grip, as they get closer. They can do it, all they have to do is beat the ten muscular zombies in front of them.       Rarity splits her magic rays from her horn into halves, as she has the first two front zombies dead by her blasts. She even pushes herself back to miss their hits, also kicking dirt in their eyes to blind them. This gives Applejack a chance to surprise the blinded zombies by punching them in their spines from behind, sending them to a hurt sleep.       Applejack and Rarity then look at the last six big zombies in front of them, blocking Shining Armor from his freedom. Applejack tilts her hat, as she starts to pick Rarity up with her hooves to raise her in the air. Rarity tries to ask what’s going on, but Applejack just throws her into the last move, literally.       SWIFF!       The throw has Rarity aimed at the big zombies, having her react immediately. Applejack intended to do that so Rarity can use a quick powerful move to take down the enemies with a huge magic flash.       With the cutting effect, the rest of the muscular zombies are chopped in half by the magical wave, pushing the remains aside for Applejack and Rarity to pass through. As Applejack approaches the imprisoned Shining Armor, she buck kicks the vine, which releases Twilight’s brother immediately. Twilight then sees this, and runs up to catch him before he falls to the ground.       “Twilight?” Shining Armor asks.            “Yes, I’m here. Everything is okay.” Twilight assures.       As the rest of Twilight’s friends gather to help Shining Armor up, Fireblaze and Blade go against the zombie Flash. Fireblaze builds up his fire breath to go over four hundred degrees fahrenheit, in order to have Flash back off from the attack. Then, as the zombie did, Fireblaze ran through the flaming remains to take him by surprise. The zombie expected that though, and punches him in the face the moment he gets closer. That move pushes Fireblaze down, having Blade be the next to attack.     Blade pulls out a sword being carried by his back, and swings it to have Flash back away. Yet, Blade is expecting him to assume what the next attacks will be like. So when he waits to miss, he allows Flash to make a punch throw.       POW!       The surprise move he gave to Flash was just unpredictable and created in perfect timing. The hit was enough to hit his skull, nearly having half of Flash’s original voice come back. His senses are nearly free, but not yet.       A bit away from that fight, Coco and Mokuba are going against the zombie Cheese Sandwich. The brainwashed slave starts out by attacking Coco, only by her hopping back to kick him in the face at the same time. She then hops onto his chest to wrestle him against the ground.          Mokuba then participates by knocking one final blow to his head, having a zombie squeal erupt through Cheese’s mouth. A sudden violent shakes jolts through his body as the spell is being released with the hit. After a hundred more shakes with Coco holding him to the ground, Cheese calms down and starts to breath heavily. Mokuba looks into his eyes, checking to see if the party pony is back to normal. Cheese wheezes out something…       “What’s happening?” Cheese said, “Coco? What are you doing here?”       “He’s back.” Mokuba sighs in relief.       Coco nods.       Close to them, Tails and TJ are continuing to fight more zombies that can find. Tails uses more of his Kamehameha waves to tear them apart by force. TJ uses his dodon ray gun to blast the zombies through their brains, just as he taps his feet backwards to miss their leaping bite moves coming towards him.        Finally, across from the foxes, Skull and Nucor are fighting each other with left and right punches. Skull even uses his scythe weapon to swing waved auras to attack his father, expecting to have him trapped in it’s exploding moves of fire. Nucor jumps from the explosion attack, and lands to push his son into the chest, cracking another one of his ribs as he does.       “YOU’RE GOING TO OBEY ME NO MATTER WHAT!” Nucor laughs, “YOU’LL END UP LIKE YOUR MOTHER IF YOU DON’T!”       “YOU BASTARD!” Skull screams at his evil father.       They keep fighting with fury, as Nucor comes forward to open a fist punch towards his son’s hip joint. Skull bends to abstain and refuse the attack to strike him, as he then strikes a rightful punch to his father’s face, once strong enough to POP his eye out. Nucor screams, as blood spurts out the optic hole. He then kicks with his hind legs to strike his son in the pelvis bone of his hips. The strike nearly cracked something, having Skull fidget at the battle pain.       Nucor then makes another merciless punch towards Skull’s chest, also knocking aside his scythe. Skull tried to get his weapon back, but his father blocks his way to slam his hooves onto his arms, pinning them to the ground to then stomp on them constantly until they’re broken. The sudden force of being hurt is ringing in Skull’s ears, and the confrontation is not at all as expected now. As Nucor lowered the beatings, he looks down at his soon as he laughs.          “Look at you.” Nucor mocks him, “Sure, you came a long way with your friends, but did you really think you could defeat your own father. Such a waste. I should let you know my zombie army has placed bombs in the Crystal Empire after all the princesses and escapees captures. They’re sealed up inside with anypony else knowing. Now that they’ll die in the explosion for a couple hours, nopony in this world will have a ruler. This is just the apocalypse I envisioned.”       Skull snarls. Is that what his own father planned all along? That beast. Now Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and his other acquaintances are in trouble, and Twilight might not know what to do with such little time.       “I see I won my side of this fight…” Nucor sneers at Skull, “But will you ever win yours?”       Nucor has no idea, but Skull PLANNED, PLANNED to use his powers and levitate the scythe back to him to…       VOOM!       SLICE!       “I won one part today.” Skull calmly said, “That’s my revenge. That’s all I need at the moment…”       Until the Crystal Empire rescue should be planned out, Skull is in relief that his father IS DEAD! Good as dead. All it took was an unknown announcement to grab his circular blade, and chop off the head of Nucor. > Nucor Saga--Doomsday > --------------------------------------------------------------------------   As Twilight gets back together with her friends, she looks at Skull with his worried face. As soon as he approaches her as well, he tells her about the quick steps Nucor took to trap everyone around the Crystal Empire to kill them all in the bomb blast. Twilight is engulfed in fear for everypony in the trap, and there are still zombies alive even without Nucor’s control. Tails and TJ help Flash up after he’s released from the spell and look at their friends. Discord rubs his palm on his forehead, anxious of what to do.       “THAT BASTARD!” Rainbow Dash shouts, referring to Nucor, “How can he do that?”       “He though of this as a game, that’s why he did it…” Skull sighs.       “If we don’t think of something soon, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence will die!” Twilight panics.       “Not to say I can help put peace to Equestria.” Discord tries to calm down, “Still, we know Celestia rules best. I can still transport us there to the empire on time so we can get all the other ponies out.”       “Including the princesses.” Flash sighs, coming back to consciousness, “But the bombs, they’re targeted at their times. We won’t have enough time.”       “Maybe we will…” Fireblaze grins, rubbing his chin.       “What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asks.       “I have an idea.” Fireblaze shares, “I’ll find where the bombs are and use my ice powers to freeze them, whatever ice spell is left. They won’t hold the bombs for long though, but that could give you enough time to have all the other ponies evacuate from the castle. Nucor might have blocked all the entrances too, so we have to improvise and make our own exits.”       “Don’t forget my magic.” Discord adds.       “That could work.” Rainbow Dash nods.       “We need to get them out of the empire as well.” Twilight adds, “The debris that will fall from the explosion could be hazardous to those close by.”       “Right then.” Discord said, snapping his fingers.       It is then that all the gang is flashed to the Crystal Empire, ready for their mission.         Celestia, Luna, and Cadence are trying to calm everypony in front of them when they’re by the waterfall, knowing all entrances are blocked in front of them. The watery park is well connected to the kingdom, but Celestia didn’t anticipate that Nucor would plant explosives. Luna tries to build up her magic to help the others get away, but Nucor drained whatever was from the princesses really well.       “This has to be worked around somehow.” Cadence sighs.       “If Twilight were only outside, or inside… helping us think of a way…” Celestia hums.       FLASH!       “You called?” Twilight said, appearing in front of her with Discord’s poof.       “My subjects… friends… TWILIGHT!” Celestia cheers, rushing up to Twilight to hug her, “Are you aware of…”       “Yes…” Twilight sighs, “Fireblaze is taking care of the bombs right now.”         Fireblaze sped as fast as he can all around the kingdom when he uses his dragon vision to sense the bombs at his distance. He can see they’re strongly bolted to the crystal pillars of each palace building, shaped as bones made of wood. He zooms up his speed, going in front of the first bombs as he blows his icy breath to freeze the bombs from continuing their digital timing. Once he froze the bombs, he switches up his breath to make a signal in the sky, so his friends can see its time to make the next move.       William is finally involved, since he’s with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Diamond Tiara. They all go into the castle while following Skull and Blade, just after they met up with them in their hiding spot in Ponyville. Their skills of finding the hidden bombs are like doing a scavenger hunt. Skull managed to use his scythe to tear open the stone blocked entrances that appeared inside the castle by Nucor’s previous power. So given their teamwork, the fillies rush into each corridor t0 locate the bombs Fireblaze froze and found, as they also meet up with Ian looking at the bombs. The diamond dog thinks hard and long of a way to build up his strength, so he can use it to tear out the bolts securing the bombs. The sticky situation feels of a bad taste of death quicksand.       Ian also stays by his side, as he sees Ian climb up the first pillar in front of him. Fireblaze mentioned that the bombs are impossible to tear off, but that doesn’t discourage Ian. Using his remaining strength he saved after that fight from the outside zombies from the empire, he pulls the first bomb with all his might. His muscles nearly tear, as he roars in rage to rip off the first bomb. The fillies gasp as Ian also grunts in pain, falling onto the floor with Leo catching him with his arms.       “Tearing… off the bombs will do no good.” Leo advises, “I think it will ruin your strength.”       “No. I should keep trying.” Ian assures, “Let’s keep going.”       As Leo nods at Ian’s assurance, the gang passes by Pinkie and Applejack attempting to buck-kick the bombs off the pillars. It doesn’t work, but they sigh in relief when they see Rainbow Dash guiding the young filly citizens out of the palace as they pass by them. The fillies’ parents are also following, as Rarity and Fluttershy stay behind them to make sure nopony else falls behind.         Tails and TJ were amazed when they see Ian being persistent to tear off the next three bombs, despite the paining strain developing in his arm muscles. The foxes help too, by diffusing the first three bombs Ian tears off after cracking the ice off them. Behind the foxes, Coco, Flash, and Cheese sandwich guide more pony citizens to calmly follow them to their improvising exit, as they soon come across a blocked entrance created by the zombies. Flash manages to use his sword to slice the blockage in half, splitting the rock into two. The entrance then shows a light and entrance to the palace garden, colorful of quartz and gems. The garden also has a stairway down to the village, having the citizens lose patience of waiting and running out to guide themselves over there.       William then squirms over to Cheese by surprise, and hands over whatever bombs Ian torn off into a bag… to him. Cheese is nervous and annoyed that William would do that, but he know the priority. They have to find a place to get rid of the bombs before they detonate.       “I’m just nervous…” William explains to Cheese about his hesitation, “Sorry if I’m being insecure.”       “No, you’re okay…” Cheese said.       Fireblaze then lands in front of Cheese Sandwich, as he looks at the frozen bombs in shock. He then looks to see that medic ponies are carrying Ian out, having bandages and casts wrapped around his arms. Fluttershy eventually meets up with them, soothing Ian and calming him down from suffering.       “You torn off all the bombs with your bare paws?” Fireblaze asks him.       “Had to…” Ian grins.       “Amazing.” Fireblaze grins, “But now we need to think of a place to send the bombs before they melt and explode.”       “How much time do we have?” Cheese Sandwich asks.       Fireblaze looks at the timers on the bombs.       TWO MINUTES!       The other ponies gasp when they see this with him. They already ran out of time! It’s all too late…       “We failed…” Fireblaze moans.       Discord and Skull then appear by them, also noticing in shock. The case is simple, is somepony were to use whatever power they have, the powerful bomb will take them down and have them dead either way. And even if one uses their teleportation spell, it can only be used once after Nucor’s zombie aura worn down some magic… some…       Skull then knew, he had some spell left inside of him.       Discord looks at Fireblaze.       “Is that all the bombs from…” he starts to ask.       “Yes…” Fireblaze sighs in sadness.       Twilight rushes the princesses and citizens from the distant exit close to where the gang is sadly standing, then noticing…. SKULL IS GRABBING THE BOMBS! The alicorn figured out that time may have been run out, but is Skull really going to…       Skull then bows his head down, and looks up at Discord.       “Transport me to where my dad is…” Skull requests to Discord, “Manehatten might be a dead city anyway.”       “But Skull…” Discord protests.       “DO IT! YOU HAVE TO SURVIVE!” Skull screams.       Discord snaps his fingers at Skull’s fierce command. In an instant, Skull poofs to drop the bombs in Manehatten, far away from the Crystal Empire. Celestia looks with Twilight in shock, realizing Skull is sacrificing his life to save his friends.         As Skull finally poofs, he sees in front of the abandoned city, still holding the bombs. He then sees he’s in front of his father’s dead body. Then, the corpse sighs…       Skull froze.       NUCOR IS ALIVE.       But not for long. The evil father is still swallowing up his last breath. Skull just looks at his father in curiosity.       “So… this was your choice… wasn’t it?” Nucor whispers to his son, “Well good job. And if case if you’re wondering where your mother is, she’s free. Her whole sprit is free. Had to let her go after the curse is broken. Heck, all my undeads are finally fucked and over with. YOU… finally got what you wanted from me. Since I’m done… I must apologize to you…”       This surprises Skull.       “Ever since the dark cloud… NIGHTMARE MOON… got me involved, I snapped from the reluctance… and I manipulated MYSELF to have the cloud allowed to control my mind. I lost sanity after the first apocalypse I caused years ago, right before I was defeated by your mother, and Celestia herself. I should have got some time spent with… knowing you more. Now… as for Discord and Fluttershy…”       Skull is surprised that he brought them up.       “I want them both to be your friends as much as everypony you finally got together with. I’m also sure Fluttershy might be the special somepony for you. Heh. I should have ended up in Tartarus for punishment, but perhaps… this… this death will help me understand peace. You got to make a good future for yourself son… good….bye….”       Nucor breathes out his last breath as death finally took him, having Skull drip out a tear as he finally forgave his father for realizing something that’s right.       “Goodbye father.” Skull said, shutting his eyelids.       He then drops the bomb, and runs for the hills as fast as he can. The timer beeps faster and faster as Skull goes farther as he can. It beeps one last time before…       BLAM! > Free at Last > --------------------------------------------------------------------------  Skull felt the odd feeling, could it be death? He knew nopony can survive that atomic mass explosion of danger and disarray. He felt like an angel, flying to the heavens to leave his pony self. No, he’s alive. But… HE IS FLYING. How?       He’s not a pegasi. So there has to be a logical reason. He looks around at the earthy view below him, then looks up. Somepony else is carrying him. IT’S HIS MOM…       She just grabbed him to safety to avoid the explosion, and her cutie mark is a puppy. She must have been really into animals back then, just like Fluttershy. But it’s her soul, and she came in the right time for her son. Love is the most powerful thing to keep a pony alive, and Skull is one of them.       “Mom…” Skull whispers.       “Yes. I know about father too. I forgive him like you do.” she smiles, “You deserve to live like I should have. I must get you back to your friends now.”       The heartfelt mother feels warm, doing her duty to return his son to see his friends. Skull felt relief, and looks at the zombies screaming and meting into ash down below. Nucor’s powers are gone, meaning that everypony can finally be safe…         The other ponies are worried for Skull’s life, assuming that he’s already dead. It’s now sun setting in the sky as well, and Twilight hugs Applejack, and Rarity for the possible loss of Skull. She wished so hard that there was another alternative to this deadly situation, but there wasn’t. Tails come over to hug Rainbow and Fluttershy, comforting them from their grief.       “I’m sorry….” he says to them.       Discord tears out softly, then walks around with Fireblaze and Shining Armor to see what needs to be repaired and constructed in the empire. Fluttershy turns around to join them, but then hears a faint sound of flapping wings in the distance. She turns around to see the silhouette, shadowing though the sky       “Is that… Skull?” Fluttershy suddenly whispers.       “What?” Discord asks.       As everypony looks at the direction Fluttershy is looking up towards, they can see Skull floating and being carried by a ghost pegasi.       “I recognize her…” Celestia comments, seeing the beauty of the mother’s eyes, “Skull’s mother… Maria. She fought alongside with me once.”       “Her soul must finally be free.” Luna smiles.       Maria then comes up front to the gang, who happen to be very relieved that Skull is alive. They applaud, and rush up to him, hugging and congratulating him for doing such a heroic act. Celestia then comes up to Maria and shakes her hoof. Even though she’s like a projection, the warmth of he hoof could still be felt. Discord and Fluttershy are then the other best buddies that come up to hug Skull after Fireblaze and Rainbow Dash do.       “That was a brave thing to do!” Fluttershy squees.       “We thought you were dead…” Discord said.       “Well, I’m lucky, thanks to my mom.” Skull smiles, “My father also admitted his deeds. Nightmare Moon got him involved.”       “Does that mean… he’s free too?” Rainbow Dash asks.       “I think so.” Skull smiles, “He deserves it.”       “At least the spell died down.” Luna sighs, “I’m sure the other ponies that were possessed will also redeem back to normal.”       Maria then turns to looks at Twilight, Discord, and Fluttershy. Hope is in her eyes as she comes up to nuzzle with them. Spike even comes over to feel her chest, curious if the ghost has a heartbeat. Sure enough, she does. It was so strange but sweet.       “Twilight, you do everything you can to help Discord and Fluttershy take care of Skull.” Maria requests, then turning to them, “He’s your best friend, and he’s very lucky to have you all. You know Fluttershy, I followed your example too, with animal care and all…”       “Oh, there will be plenty of lessons for Skull on that.” Fluttershy assures.       “Twilight… this may be the first and last time I got to thank you and see you up front.” Maria weeps.       “You take care too.” Twilight smiles, nodding in respect.       The friends then see that Maria rises high into the air, starting to fade from her existence. It was all too soon for Skull, and he’s already sobbing at her departure. But to make things happy, a bright rainbow door appears, sending her out into another open world where life continues to grow. The rainbow than grows bigger in the sky, having a gradient saturation of red and orange celebrate peace yet again.       “Skull…” Celestia said, looking down at him, “Equestria is truly in great debt for what you have done.”       Skull didn’t notice, but every pony that was evacuated here is standing in front of the gang, like the entire pony citizens from each region gathered to honor his heroism. However, Skull isn’t alone. Everypony also smiled at Twilight and the other main five ponies for their brave deeds. They even gave respect to Discord for his efforts, and the foxes for such great volunteering. Shining Armor even goes by his son Mokuba, and pats him on the back. The filly prince smiles, as Diamond Tiara then comes up by him to give him a kiss.       William is by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, then squirming over to Applejack to wink for a smooch. Applejack was reluctant, but quickly gave him a brief one for the heck of it. William almost acts crazy, and leans on Leo. Leo sighs, and pats his hand on Ian, who is resting on a lift-up bed given his injuries.       “Ponies of Equestria.” Celestia beams to her subjects, “Today is another day where we honor another hero for his deeds. We have experienced another superstitious event that nearly cost us our lives. But when Twilight stepped in, she was aided by her trusted friends, and joined by one more soul who gave everything to protect us, even if it meant his life.”        Celestia then looks down at Skull.       “For this day forward, we shall mark this day the Hour of the Reaper.” Celestia declares.       The ponies didn’t cheer as crazy hooligans, they just stomp there hooves in approval and proud respect. The hour of more freedom has risen once again, and Twilight smiles for that. She then comes up to her friends once more to give them a big group hug. Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Discord, William, Ian, Leo, Tails, TJ, Fireblaze, and Blade. Fireblaze other troops, including the assassin spy dragon, couldn’t but there unfortunately. But he’s proud nevertheless. And Spike coughs out a message they sent that they’re already constructing Ponyville after it’s damage.       As Twilight nuzzles with her companions, she looks back up to Celestia announcing something else to her subjects.       “We shall celebrate by having a huge feast here in the Crystal Empire.” Celestia shines out, “Everypony is welcome.” > Tails Prevails (or, Tails' Triumph) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ponies murmur and cheer in delight, as they’re guided by the guards to be ready for the big celebration. Twilight smiles at the princess, and then comes up to welcome the random guests while her friends join in to do the same thing. Then, Flash comes up to Twilight with a serious look on his face. She then turns to him, sighing while knowing what’s going on. Given her other feelings for Tails.       Tails also notices, and is standing across from their personal matter.       “Flash…” Twilight starts to say.       “I know. You want time to think before actual marriage. I respect that.” Flash smiles, hugging her, “What Sombra declared might have been a fluke anyway.”       “I do love you.” Twilight said.       “I know.” Flash smiles.       Flash then leaves, and walks up to Tails. He then extends his hoof, and shakes hands with him. Tails smiles, and appreciates his friendship offering to him.       “She’ll depend on you quite often.” Flash smirks.       “I’m sure.” Tails chuckles.       Tails then heads over to Twilight, as TJ, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie watch. Tails looks at Twilight, rubbing his hand against his head. The whole relationship may be weird, but still.       “I’m… going to stay for the party.” Tails tells her.       “That’s nice.” Twilight smiles, “TJ too?”       “Yep.” Tails nods, “Uh, you want to set up a date soon?”       “Sure.” Twilight agrees, “But for now, why don’t we go talk and hang out at the garden? Have a walk?”       “Okay.” Tails smiles.       As the two lovers walk off, TJ grins at shock with Applejack and Pinkie.       “I don’t believe he actually got her.” TJ smirks.       “Well, everypony has her day.” Applejack admits.       “Let’s go back inside!” Pinkie hops up and down, “I want to see if the chefs are handing out cupcakes!”       Applejack and TJ nod at the idea, and to make the night better, head in to join the others for the celebration.         Rarity, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Discord, and Fluttershy look up at the sky, seeing the butterflies roaming freely in the sky. Skull is even by them, listening to the laughter and gobbling of food behind them as the sight of the colorful sky is combined. Friendship has never been so happy to all of them in this moment, and from all the events that happened, it all led up to this special moment.   The End