> Rōnin
>  by Sawtoothetherium
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


ACT I: The Equestrian Conquest


Akira Imamura. Samurai, and a good one. He wore the usual light armor of the samurai and carried the daisho, twin swords of the samurai. He also carried the nodachi, a very long sword, longer than a man is tall. The first sword, the wakizashi, was a short daggerlike version of the katana. The katana came next, a long two handed sword, the hilt having space for three hands. The nodachi was so large that the handle had room for five hands and followed the curve of the blade.

His armor was made of hardened leather bands, sewn together with leather thongs. The shoulder guards were rectangular and hugged his upper arm, they were made of hard leather strips that resembled the scales of a snakes belly. The skirt of the armor was made of the same rectangles of overlapping hardened leather strips. His gauntlets were made of iron plates tied down to his forearms by leather cord laced through them, and a small hand guard on each one. His greaves were iron plates that his sandals were laced into. His helmet was a cap of Iron, from which three bands of iron hung down to skirt the back and sides of his head, leaving his face open. Two deer antlers adorned his helmet, and to protect his face was the menpo. His menpo was a mask made of iron, on that was carved a monstrous skeletal face upon which was fixed a hideous scowl.

Akira was currently on an assignment from his master, the daimyo Kamakura, to investigate enemy activity in the forests north of the castle where he was stationed. There was suspected to be ninja in those woods, and he was sent to eliminate them.

Drawing close to the suspected area Akira drew his wakizashi, as the long katana and even longer nodachi would have been useless in such a confined space. He began to creep forward with care, always aware of where he was, and what was around him. He never saw any ninja, but that didn't mean that they weren't there. He never found any ninja, he did find something though, he never knew what it was, but it caught him by surprise. He never saw it, he just knew it had to have been a demon. The next thing he knew he woke up in a grassland, not where he once was.





Luna stood at the front line, as always. She had her rectangular shield braced just like every soldier there, her spear braced outward to face the line of enemies that outnumbered them ten to one. She could only hope for a miracle when the enemy line began to advance. 

The archers behind her wall of shields began raining clouds of arrows down from the sky onto the advancing enemy and taking a toll on their numbers while they approached the line. The enemy line had been reduced to half its numbers by the time they arrived at the line, at which point the archers stopped firing on them and resumed the ready position. The line began stabbing like animals while keeping the wall of shields strong, causing more damage than was being taken. After that line had finished, the next advanced, this time with arrows to back them up. 

The second to last rows made a roof with their shields while also making sure to focus on the advancing enemy, also under arrow fire. After the line reached the defenders, the firing of arrows stopped and the second wave suffered the fate of the first. Then the defenders began to advance themselves.

They advanced in tortoise formation to keep safe from arrows and the front. The archers follow, and began firing on the enemy archers. They were told to fire at will, and thus kept a continuous flow of arrows coming down, things were looking good for Luna and her batponies, until enemy reinforcements arrived to hit them from the side.

They reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. They suffered casualties, and several of them. The battle turned into a slaughter, where the enemy carved them up without mercy. Luna was certain they had lost, that her children were finally to meet their end. No one predicted what had happened next.

A stranger, in strange armor and carrying three strange swords, the longest being in his hands, showed up. Seeing that Luna's force needed assistance he chose to side with them, to even the odds as best he could, and even the odds he did.

The stranger carved through the enemy ranks with feline grace and practiced ease. Luna saw him stab, gut then decapitate one enemy in less than four seconds, then stabbing another and cutting a third in twine. The stranger wore a helm of iron upon which sat a deers antlers, and a hideous mask covered his face.

The strangers prowess and brutal efficiency rallied the outnumbered ponies to him. Their fear disappeared in an instant, replaced with rage. They began to slaughter all of the enemy they managed to catch, those that ran were shot with arrows. The frightening warrior with the strange swords was not only effective in close combat but also over a distance. The last of the enemy, including their commander, fled. The stranger took up a bow from a fallen archer and began to fire precise shots into the enemy numbers. 

Each shot was precise and accurate, the first to fall was the enemy commander. Only about five actually escaped, likely never to trouble them again.

Luna approached the stranger, "Thank you good sir. You have saved my troops from certain doom, come with us, we have much to discuss.





Blueblood, prince of Equestria and general in the Equestrian army recieved the news three days later. A new enemy had arisen amongst the ranks of their opponent. He cursed Luna's name, he cursed the batponies. There wouldn't even be a war if they had just stayed in their place, accepted their role in the gutters. He began fighting against them despite his aunts pleas for a peaceful solution. The bat-filth had to be put into place, or eradicated.
> Explain, now.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira followed the strange looking woman and her troops into a mountain pass where they set camp. The pass was lined on either side by nearly vertical cliff faces, leaving only two places from which they could be attacked, and they had set it up so that the archers would sleep sandwiched between the close combat units, so both fronts were covered. The command tent was located in the middle of the camp, like always. Akira had been taken there to answer questions, and ask them.

The interior was simple, a central support pole held the roof of the tent up with for corner poles to keep the tent up, four ropes connected each corner pole to the central one and were staked to the ground outside. Inside there wasn't much, just a folding table with maps adorning it. The strange woman had joined him in the tent, to ask him some questions. he bowed respectfully, as was the custom of his people, when she entered. She sat on a low stool and told him to take a seat, and was surprised when he simply knelt on the spot, his hands resting on his thighs and his shoulders thrown back.

"What is your name stranger?" She asked him.

"Akira Imamura." He responded. "And what is yours, if I may ask?"

"I am Princess Luna of the Bat Clans." she told him.

Hearing this he quickly prostrated himself. "My apologies majesty. Had I known I would have shown the proper respect."

"No apologies necessary Akira." She told him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I would ask you to remove your helmet, there need not be any secrets between us."

He complied by first loosening his mask then taking his helmet off and setting on the ground in front of him.

She looked at him, half surprised at his appearance. She knew that he would be different when she saw that his faceplate was flat instead of conclave to make room for a muzzle, still she couldn't help but be a little surprised. He had no fur, and his muzzle was absolutely minuscule, the skin about his eyes was rather stretched giving them the appearance of being smaller than normal. His hair was pitch black and tied back in a bun at the back of his head. His skin was a light tan color and very well taken care of with no visible scars.

"What are you Akira?" She asked.

"I am Samurai." He replied. "A warrior of my kind."

"I see. How did you come here, and why did you help us?"

"That's simple enough." He told her. "It started when I was sent into the forests north of where I dwelled to hunt ninja, honorless and cowardly fighters, they are little more than backstabbers and assassins. I came across a demon instead, and the next thing I knew I woke up on a field, not far from where you and the others were fighting. When I came to that place I saw that you were badly outmatched, and decided to try evening the odds. I can see that it worked."

"Indeed it did. The Solarim will be mourning the loss of many warriors tonight." She said proudly, "and all of it is thanks to your efforts."

"You honor me princess, now if I may, I would like to ask a few questions of my own." 

"If I can answer them I will." She says.

"Where am I?"

"You are in the nation of Equestria, which is torn in two by a civil war." She tells him.

"What is this war being fought over?"

"Equality." She tells him glumly. "The Batponies have never recieved fair treatment, meaning that they were beaten, starved, wrongfully imprisoned, kidnapped, raped and murdered either out of anger, blind hatred, superstition or leisure."

This gave Akira something to think about. He hadn't ever heard of such cruelty, not even to conquered peoples. "Do you have room for another soldier?"

"I wanted to ask you about something similar. I saw how you fought out there and it was... well... impressive to say the least. I was hoping that you could help train some new soldiers to fight like you do. Will you do this?"

Akira thought for a moment, he had never been much of a good teacher. "I could, but I've never been much good and instructing."

"We'll need to get you back to The Deep before we can begin anything so you will have time." She says to him.

"However, training like this could take years. I've been training since the moment I could stand to do what I do."

"We can work with that, we need anything we can get in this war." She tells him. "Perhaps you could teach me to start, to get some practice in teaching?"

"I don't see a problem, I will have to know what kind of weapon you prefer to use. A polearm, a sword, a slashing or stabbing weapon, a short or long weapon, ranged or no, that kind of thing."

"I can tell you that later, but for now get some sleep. I'll have a tent given to you."

"My thanks princess." He says. 

"I need to speak with the officers about our next strategy, you may go."





Blueblood strode through the halls towards the princess' chambers. He came in and found Princess Celestia at her desk writing what appeared to be a letter to her student. He didn't much care about what was going on there but still he took the letter from the desk and read its contents to be sure that no sensitive information was being passed. There was none.

Princess Celestia glared up at him. She looked as she always did, a fine white dress trimmed with gold that covered her entire body save for her neck, head and hands. The only thing that wasn't normal were the manacles about her wrists. These were iron, and engraved upon them were runes to restrict magic of any kind aside from what Blueblood allowed. That was how Princess Celestia was still able to keep the day cycle going without being able to quell Blueblood's revolution. She knew he intended to keep her like this until he died, and likely beyond. 

She didn't approve of the war, even if it was fought for good reason, on one side anyway. She approved of Blueblood's rise to power even less, despite her intent to end the war peacefully by any means. She had no idea that her sister was fighting on the front lines, she never allowed it before in the few wars she had been in, and never thought her sister would do anything of the sort.

Blueblood replaced the letter on the desk. "Did you summon a demon to spite me?"
> Mobile training with a samurai
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna had discussed the next course of action with her commanders, and they were to retreat back to The Deep, capital city of the Darklands. It was a good month and a half march until they reached it, so they had to be well prepared, and it would also give Luna time to learn from Akira. She spoke with him when she visited his tent and they agreed to train in the evenings after camp had been set, and that was what she intended to do that evening. After they had marched north for the entire day and made camp when it came close to dusk.

She found him kneeling outside his tent facing away from the sunset. She approached him carefully, he noticed her long before he gave it away. He looked at her at the last second, giving her a light start.

"I assume you have come to train." It wasn't a question.

"I have, what do you have planned?"

"First, you need to learn how to fight without weapons, then we will move on to those later." He tells her, surprising.

She didn't question it, she assumed that he knew what he was doing. "Very well, I'm assuming we will start with the basics."

"Indeed, basic strikes and blocks with your hands and a few kicks as well." He tells her.

"So lets begin."

And so they did. Beginning with blocks and dodges, she paid close attention to what he taught. She followed his movements closely and did her best to correct mistakes he pointed out. She wasn't as good as she had hoped and went to bed sore that night. And same with the next day, and the next. Slowly she got faster, stronger and more flexible in her movements. The actual training wasn't very eventful, just the same thing as it always was, stretch, exercise, blocks, hands, feet, combine. Luna learned her most effective kicks and worked those a bit harder than the rest to improve them, but still working on those that she wasn't so good at to keep them ready for use if the time came.

She began to work on throws too come the end of the month, as well as disarms against an armed opponent whilst unarmed. It was also around that time that she began to work with weapons. She found that he had carved two wooden swords for training, their shape and size perfectly matched the second longest sword he had, worn at the hip. He told her that this would be the main weapon used by his warrior kind, the katana.

Again, they began with basics, simple cuts and chops as well as how to kick with a weapon in hand. Whilst they were sparring with their swords, she spun low to throw a right hook kick at his feet, followed up with a katana slash to finish him off, she won that match.

"Well done princess. Perhaps you are ready for other weapons too." He tells her. 

He picked up two sticks he had found on the way that were nearly as long as he was tall. They both were mostly straight except for at one end where they curved off like the katana blade.

"This is the general shape of a naginata, a slashing and stabbing polearm. It is favored by women in my home for its reach and versatility."

Therefore more training was added to the already long list. Luna had by this time perfected lowering the moon amidst a training session and often stayed up late to train. The naginata was different and required more space, and that's what it was supposed to do, create space in a battle. She was also told of other weapons that could be used, the Nagamaki for example. The nagamaki was a sword with a blade as long as that of the katana, and the handle was just as long as the blade and followed its curve. Unlike with the naginata where the hand positions could change during wielding, the hands would stay in a fixed place on the hilt.

Another weapon that he told her was entirely anti-armor was the kanabo, a heavy war club wielded in two hands that could be either studded with, encased in or made entirely out of iron. He also told her of the stories behind the weapons, that kanabo were used by most oni, or demons. He told her that it took perfect balance and strength to wield such a weapon. When she heard of this weapon relief flooded into her, she noticed that most of the weapons she was learning to use were mostly slashing and cutting weapons, which wouldn't work on the plate and mail armor of the nobles whom she and her armies opposed.

She focused on mastery of the daisho and naginata, which she was best at. He began sparring with her very intensely, not pulling any strikes and not slowing down at all. She didn't mind, despite the many bruises she often went to bed with, she knew that she needed to learn to go against great speed. She would always start a fight with her naginata stick, and might or might not finish with it.

Luna also learned of the armor used by the samurai, she learned of its construction and its pros and cons. The main pros were flexibility and lightness as well as decent protection from most glancing blows and a few direct ones. The cons were that it still weighed one down and it wasn't as strong as many other armors in her area. Akira explained the purpose and functions of the mask he wore. He told her that there were several kinds of masks worn by samurai. His mask, the menpo, only covered the nose down to the chin whereas the somen would cover the entire face. He told her that both of these were shaped to be as hideous as possible to scare one's opponent, the other masks wouldn't do this as well as they didn't cover 
as much of the face. These masks were the Hanbo and Happuri, the former covering only the chin and throat while the latter covered the cheeks and forehead.

She was steadily learning, and eager to have the weapons forged so that she might use them on the enemy.
> The Deep
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira had seen impressive places before. He had been to many beautiful and imposing castles back in Japan. He had defended the walls of some from rival warlords and their armies. But never before had he feasted his eyes upon such a glory as The Deep,  Capital city of the Bat Clans.

He saw only the front gates at this time, as they were still at least five leagues away, and they made up an enormous part of the mountainside. It was set into an large mountain range, and the largest mountain at the front of the range was where the gates were located. He saw that it was carved out of the mountain itself, the gates were two heavy ebony doors, reinforced tenfold with iron and reaching about a quarter Ri in height. (Ri were traditional Japanese units of measurement. Just above two miles.)

The gates were set into solid stone walls that were completely smooth from the ground to the battlements. And behind the battlements was what appeared to be another wall, and another after that. The first wall was tallest from base to top, the next two were only about one Ri in height from the top of the previous wall. Upon these battlements he saw very large artillary, particularly trebuchets and ballistae. The ballistae had six arms each, adding to the force it would put behind each bolt fired. The trebuchets were unlike anything he had ever seen in Japan, it consisted of a base with two A-frames holding a long arm between them. On the shorter end of the arm was a counterweight, to put force behind the shot to be flung from the sling on the other end.

As he and the small militia he was marching with, headed by Luna, approached the gates they began to open. He saw as they entered that the gates weren’t just two doors reinforced with iron, there were five sets of gates each pair getting heavier and thicker as they went in. He saw quite quickly why they called it The Deep once he was inside. The entire city spanned endless Ri in all directions, up and down too. It wasn’t very decorative, no statues and no signs of showing wealth anywhere, but if he had to choose a place to live it would be here. 

The city was made of polished stone, with excessively large braziers everywhere to light the place, as well as what appeared to be a system of mirrors set to send light throughout the city even if the braziers were down. The gargantuan pillars that held up the hollowed out mountain had rings of fire lit in troughs around the pillar itself at steady intervals giving the entire entry chamber light.

The entry chamber itself was also fortified. On all sides of the room were more battlements upon which were set only ballistae and large cauldrons for boiling oil. There were three gates, one on each wall, and all of them harder to breach than the last set of gates just to get there. He also noted that there was no apparent way to get to the main battlements outside from that chamber, to make sure that they could still be held even if the main gates were breached. So the entry chamber was also a place to crowd enemy soldiers and slaughter them without mercy, smart. He would hate to be someone besieging this city.

He was let through with some degree of suspicion, one he could easily excuse. When they left the entry hall through the door right across from the main gates, Akira could only gaze upon the city with awe. What he saw was an enormous cavern filled with carved buildings and roads built up above the ground to let them travel through. A great aqueduct went through the city and left water in large pools at steady intervals where all of the citizens were fetching water as though from a well.

After marching for a bit longer they passed the forges, and heavens above they were a sight to behold. The furnaces were large and octogonal, about two Ri high and half as wide with excessive amounts of fire and black smoke rising from each one. He could hear the large hammers falling with tremendous force, and several times he’d see a large iron block fall down from carved inlets to strike a piece of metal, then be raised back up again slowly while a smith took the metal and did finer shaping. There were hundreds of these for farther than he could see.

“Impressive is it not?” Luna said from behind him.

“Very.” Was his only answer.

Farther up he also saw several billows sucking smoke in and blowing it out through large pipes that lead out of the mountain, or to another place for a different use. The billows, just like everything else there, was excessively large and was run on hydropower. Or rather, a waterwheel.

He followed Luna and her troops into what appeared to be barracks. He couldn’t tell by looking at it from the outside, but once inside he found that it was filled with stone bunks carved into the wall. Three bunks per space, four spaces per room. And in each room on either side of the doorway were three armor stands, six in all.

The stone bunks weren’t solid rock, only their frame. They each had a simple mattress, pillow and blanket neatly set upon the bunk. That way if ever they were needed they could be used and no one would sleep uncomfortably. Luna told him that he would be staying there for a few nights while she looked for an open home for him to live in. She left him there, and he began to remove his armor and place it on a stand. Once the armor was off he put his daisho into his belt, or rather obi, and left the building to stare out at the colossal city. He hadn’t even seen the main keep yet, and he already knew that one would need an army vast beyond imagining to take this city.
> Bluebloods ire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blueblood marched through the halls of the castle of Canterlot to the dungeons. He walked down the dim set of stone steps that led to the cells which had not once been used until the war started, now it was used to hold prisoners of war. He found the torturers and asked them if they had gotten anything.

"No sir. These animals simply don't let up anything." The torturer said grimly. "They just laugh at us when we try. We've even cut the wings off some. Removed the eyes of others. We've started slowly removing each part of their limbs, muscle by muscle and bone by bone and still nothing. If they're willing to go through this than this will be a long war."

"I don't care how you do it, JUST GET ME THAT INFORMATION OR ELSE YOU WILL BE THE ONE IN THEIR PLACE!" Blueblood shrieks.

"Perhaps you'd like to try." The torturer replied. "Can't you just break into their minds?"

"You don't understand how that works you imbecile! If what you say is true it will be much HARDER to break into their minds than it would be to just BEAT IT OUT OF THEM! If they are so determined as to be so defiant than breaking into their minds would be near impossible. SO GO IN THERE, PICK UP YOUR TOOLS AND GET ME THAT INFORMATION! I NEED TO KNOW WHERE THEIR CAPITAL CITY IS, AND HOW WE CAN TAKE IT!"

"You can't." Came a raspy voice from one cell.

Blueblood looked to the cell where it came to see a very large batpony stallion in the cell. "What do you mean we can't take your pathetic capital, filth?!"

"I mean you can't take it." He says plainly. "You lack the numbers, you lack the training and you lack the strategical competence. You cannot take The Deep."

"Bring him out here." Blueblood said to his torturers.

The two masked stallions opened the cell and pulled its occupant out to force him into a kneeling position in front of Blueblood. Blueblood crouched down to see the bat stallion's face, to see a very strong and scarred face. The stallion had a scar running down his left eye and leaving it dead.

"Tell me what I need to know filth." Blueblood sneers. "And I might just spare your life."

The stallion chuckled darkly. "Like you would have spared me had there been no war? Please. Everyone knows that if we loose this war our kind we be extinct, but better extinct than under the regime of the equestrians, who had made our kind suffer needlessly. We will win, or we will die, there are no other options. So stop asking questions, to which you will recieve no answers. I have told you all I will, you cannot take our capital city. My home is safe, my friends and family are safe, my kind is safe, from you."

With that the stallion only chuckled darkly as he had before, and said no more, despite Blueblood having him flogged, beaten and tortured in every way imaginable. They got little more than grunts. The stallion was thrown back into the cell and Blueblood left for Celestia's chambers, perhaps she would know something.

He marched through the halls, passing guards and servants along the way. The many windows showing major events in equestrian history, the crystal empire, the minotaur war, the year without a summer, the dark ages you name it. He finally reached Celestia's chambers and barged in without knocking like he usually did.

"What do you want Blueblood?" Celestia demanded from her balcony.

"Information," he replies with an equal amount of venom. "Tell me where your sister is hiding, and if you do not know tell me what I can do to counter her. You know her best, and that makes you an advantage. Tell me what I want to know."

"I may not support the war Blueblood, but I would most certainly support Luna's side if I had to choose one or the other." She says. "I won't help you Blueblood, not if my life depended on it."

"We will win this war Celestia." He says to her with a hiss. "And after it is over your sister will be hung. Of course, you could spare her that fate if you just give us what we want."

"She's smarter than you are Nephew, if she was losing this war she would find a way for her and her people to escape to a place you would never find them. And if you did find them she would die on the battlefield, not on the executioners stage. She won't allow herself to be captured, and her people will not allow her to surrender. You won't win, you aren't able to."

Blueblood smacked Celestia to the ground after she said this. "Very well, when we capture your whore of a sister you will watch her while she hangs from the noose. I will make sure of it."

So he turned and left. Celestia stood and approached her desk, she opened the drawer and opened its hidden compartment, she took her next letter to twilight from it and put a second letter with it. One adressed to her sister. She put these in an envelope and gave it to her phenix. She watched her bird fly away to give the smuggled information to twilight, as well as a letter asking for news from the front.
> Intel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight was on a study rampage of a completely different level than ever she has been. She didn't know anything about the batponies and what little she found in the library wasn't very helpful. The thing is, batponies had always been looked down upon by all other races, and thus there was very little information on them. The only thing that was actually mentioned was their racial inferiority and basic anatomical information, nothing useful. In a way, that was good.

Twilight had, shamefully, believed the rumors of the batponies. But when Celestia had contacted her about what had happened in Canterlot, the big riot entirely consisted of batponies, she finally realized how wrong she had been. Ever since then she has been working as an informant to a thestral courier, giving him intel that came from Celestia in encrypted letters.

Twilight heard the burp from spike and the pop of a letter materializing out of his fire. She took the letter and found a second one attatched, too complex to encrypt, something big must have happened. She took the letter addressed to Luna and tucked it into her dress folds. Then she left the castle and walked out into the Everfree. There she met the courier, at the usual place beneath the old castle.

She went below into the castle dungeons, that was where she usually met him. She didn't know why but the idea of meeting a stallion in the dungeons made her face grow red, especially this stallion. He was a rather large stallion, almost a full head taller than her and twice as broad. He had several scars over his dark green coat and pale blue eyes, serpentine as all batponies eyes were. His mane was a darker green than his coat and cut short to make him more aerodynamic. He had to be fast after all.

He was waiting unseen in the dim light of the dungeons. And waited until Twilight was within arms reach before jumping out to scare her. She recoiled with a small scream, earning a hearty chuckle from Cedar, the courier. 

"Don't do that to me." Twilight said swatting him on his bare chest.

"Aw, but your so cute when you're scared." He says with mock complaint.

He wore just a pair of woolen pants tucked into leather boots and a leather belt to hold them up with a belt bag on his right hip. His chest was practically ripping with muscle and the scars only added to his appearance. All of this plus his comment made twilight blush. She handed him the letter addressed to Luna, surprising Cedar.

"A solid letter? Not the usual translation from a cipher?" He asks taking it from her and looking it over. "It must be something big, be it for better or worse."

"It has to be, else she would have encrypted it like she usually does." Twilight says. "What news from the front?"

"It's going relatively well." He says. "It's almost a stalemate, we just barely have the upper hand because of our strategy vs their horde tactics. But their numbers are worrying. We might be able to force Blueblood to the bargaining table, but then again, his obvious stubbornness isn't helping much."

"Has there been any word from Luna herself?" Twilight asks.

"Yes actually." Cedar says. "The absolutely strangest thing has happened. A very weird looking stallion showed up when Luna and her small militia were outmatched and turned the tide of the battle. He wore a strange armor, and had the face of a demon. He carried three different swords, all of them strange to us. Princess Luna has asked him to train some new soldiers to fight like he does."

"And how does this, 'creature', fight?" Twilight asks. 

"Very swift, very deadly. He seems to move without stopping at all, and his cuts are very effective. He doesn't stop for anything unless every last enemy he sees is dead. I've even heard Princess Luna has asked him to give her the same training. Last I heard she was rather good at it."

Twilight looks up at him rather confused. She shrugged it off. "Anything to be sent to Princess Celestia?"

"Just another letter from Princess Luna." He says handing over an envelope of folded parchment.

The envelope was sealed with a wax seal that bore Luna's mark. A rose with a crescent moon above it and four stars on four sides of the seal.

"Thank you Cedar." Twilight says taking it from him and putting into the folds of her dress.

"Your face is flushed again." Cedar informs her.

"NO ITS NOT!" She says her face growing red.

"Well it wasn't, but it is now." He says with a teasing singsong voice.

She could only stutter. He knew exactly which buttons to push and when to embarrass her. She sometimes wished that he'd stop, but then again, he was so good at it. And some part of her liked it, the way he knew exactly how she would react to certain things. 

She turned an even darker shade of red when he wrapped an arm about her shoulders and pulled her into his side. "Why are you so nervous. We've known each other for almost two years now."

"I know, you just won't stop teasing me." She says.

"Are you complaining?" He asks, teasing her again.

"N-no, I'm saying I wouldn't be so 'nervous' if you would stop teasing me in such a way." She says.

"You like it when I do." He says, knowingly. 

She pulled away to look him square in the face. "Shut up," She said, just before pulling him into a kiss.





Twilight returned home a few hours later, sore in her nether regions. She had an enormous blush on her face and was thankful for the dark night. Wow, just wow he was good. She more or less waddled into her home and undressed before getting into bed. This was an active day. She closed her eyes and slept, dreaming of that evenings 'events'.
> Ranger Rainbow and Swift Arrow.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash, once a member of the esteemed wonderbolts, now an Equestrian ranger and traitor to the Equestrians. She acted as a scout and hunter for the Equestrians, and always smuggled the same information to the Bat Clans as well as Equestrian troop details.

Rainbow dash wore minimal clothing to allow for swiftness and flexibility. She had what was essentially a leather sports bra and light shorts held up with a belt. At her waist was a pair of daggers to be used in close combat. She wore a pair of soft leather boots and her main held back with a simple cord. Slung across her back was a quiver of arrows and a longbow.

She was overlooking a large forest on the front, searching for Bat Clan troops and possible advantages. She Moved throught the forest speedily and stealthily. After a while she stopped near a hillside cave, and rested for a short while. He said to meet him there in a months time.

She turned after hearing silent movement behind her, and found him standing there. She stood and smiled as she turned to face him. “Swift Arrow, it’s been almost a month.”

“It has indeed Rainbow.” He says pulling his hood down.

Swift Arrow was a batpony ranger, and Rainbow’s contact. She and him always met somewhere every month to exchange information, it started because Twilight had asked Rainbow to do this. Rainbow trusted Twilight, and went into this with some degree of reluctance, but eventually she grew used to it and was rather glad for it.

Swift Arrow was dressed quite unlike her. He wore a dark green hooded cloak over a simple leather jerkin and dark green woolen pants tucked into leather boots. At his hip and back he had a short sword and dagger. On his back was a quiver of arrows fletched with owl feathers and a longbow. His dark purple wings were allowed out by small cuts in the back of his jerkin and cloak.

Rainbow approached him and pulled him into a hug. “I trust you have been well.”

“I have been.” He says in response. “Have you been well?”

“I have. The war seems to be going well. The Equestrians are almost out of morale, there has been much talk of defections or desertion. They don’t like being in a war they’re loosing.”

“And I thought you were on the Equestrian side.” He teases.

“You know what I am Swift.” She says sternly. “I thought that our cause was just in the beginning. Then my eyes were opened and my allegiance changed.”

“I know.” He says. “Am I not aloud to joke?”

“No, not at all.” She says rolling her eyes.

Thunder sounded above making them look up. “Come on, lets stay in the cave toninght.”

Swift followed Rainbow into the hillside cave and they set up their bedrolls. He pulled a small portion of a fallen tree into the cave for them to sit on. They got a fire going and began to cook their rations.

“The war has escalated.” Rainbow says. “Training has been intensified, new troops are being brought in every month and the field hospitals have been increasing in size. They may have you outnumbered by a good margin but they have been taking heavy losses.”

“It’s not too different on our end either.” Swift says. “We’ve been taking some serious casualties and their numbers are daunting. Our injured are sent back to the cities for care and more soldiers are always needed. But their has been word of a stranger, carrying strange weapons and wearing strange armor who has been brought to the capital. He is a fierce warrior and won us a seemingly hopeless battle. His skill is... astounding.”

“Have you met this warrior?” She inquired. 

“No, but I have seen him training with Princess Luna. I doubt he will go down easily.” He says pulling his piece of salted pork off the fire and biting into it.

Rainbow dash never understood how these batponies could stomach eating meat, but she didn’t really question it. She pulled her small pot of vegetable soup off the fire and began to put it in a bowl. She began to eat it slowly, trying to imagine what such a warrior would look like.

“Can you describe him?” She asks.

“I only saw him once, but I think so.” He put a finger to his chin trying to remember. “Ah, yes. His chest plate is actually very similar to the armor used by our legionaries. It’s made of bands of what appeared to be hardened and treated leather wrapped around his chest and held on by plated shoulder straps. For his shoulder guards, they are rectangular plates made of hardened leather strips that hug his arm. His bracers and greaves are steel and cover his forearms and calves completely. His helmet looks to be a cap of steel with three steel bands that skirt the back and sides of the head. On it are two antlers that make him look larger than he really is. But the scariest part is the mask. A steel mask that covered his nose, cheeks and chin carved to look like a hideous monstrosity.”

Rainbow tried to picture it. “I think I have an idea as to what you’re talking about.”

“His weapons are just curved swords, each one bigger than the rest. The biggest one is almost as tall as he is.”

“That could do some serious damage.” Rainbow said to him.

The two finished their food and began to prepare for bed. Swift Arrow took his cloak off and set it against the top of his bedroll as a pillow. He removed his jerkin and boots then moved to lie down, only to stop at the sight of Rainbow. She had removed everythig, and stood bare for him to behold. He tried to avert his eye, and it was rather clear that’s what he was doing.

“Aww, is this your first time seeing a mare naked?” She teases getting closer to him, making sure he wouldn’t look away. “It’s time we had ‘the talk’ pal. These things are called boobies!” She exclaimed rather enthusiastically while giving them a squeeze.

And that was how Rainbow ended up bent over the log they had in the cave for half the night.
> Training
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira stood behind and beside Luna in front of a moderate group of new trainees. These were the ones he was supposed to train, and he had a good feeling about it. He saw several very muscular men and others who weren't so bulky. This was good, he had planned for differences and to train them accordingly. The bulky and muscular ones he would probably train to use the kanabō, a heavy oaken club studded with or encased in iron. 



He had plans, big plans.





Big Macintosh Apple, he had defected to the Bat Clans soon after the war started, and was joined by Fluttershy and a few others. He stood in line with the other trainees, and stared at the warrior who had quickly become legend. His armor was simple and looked rather light, but no less strong for it. His helmet was fearsome, it was a metal cap with skirting plates that covered the sides of the head, but what was fearsome about it was the antlers on it. The antlers made him look bigger than he was, and it was a very intimidating factor. More intimidating still was the mask. He had on his face a mask of the same metal painted red and shaped to be a hideous scowl on a monstrous face, that coupled with the antlers would make him think twice about fighting this guy.

Big Mac let his gaze return to the princess who was addressing the trainees, at her hip was a pair of swords identical to those carried at the other warrior's hip. He didn't know if he had an extra pair or had another pair forged for her, but he just knew that they both had to be really good with them.

The first thing they did for the training was actually an assessment. They were told to jog as far as they could along a main road until they couldn't go any further. Big Mac jogged for quite a distance, his farming years having given him extensive stamina. He and the more burly men tended to go farther than most of the smaller guy because they were also mostly consisted of farmers or blacksmiths. The samurai marked something down on a piece of parchment he was holding.

The second test they had was of strength, they had four different logs that they were told to lift in order from lightest to heaviest. The smaller guys could only lift the first two logs and maybe the third every few times, only the biggest of men could lift the last log. Once all of them were through the samurai marked on his parchment again, them told them to move through to the next test.

The next test was one of flexibility. They were all told to run through a very difficult obstacle course, one that the smaller men excelled at if it could be called excelling. In truth all of them struggled, the bigger men more than the rest. Big Mac was one of the last through the course. He almost fell to his knees in exhaustion when he was through. The samurai marked on his paper again, then had them line up again in a different order.

The order was based on who did better where. Big Mac and the other more burly stallions were put together in one of four groups. They were organized by being called light, medium-light, medium-heavy and heavy. After this they were told to remember their place and dismissed. Big Mac and the others were free to return home at the end of this. So Mac began the short walk to his home.





Big Mac opened the door to his home and found that Fluttershy had already put dinner on the table. She was none too happy about him joining the army but she supported him nonetheless. Mac all but collapsed into his chair in exhaustion when he got there.

"That bad huh?" Fluttershy asks coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around him from behind, putting her head right next to his.

"Not bad Shy, just exhaustin." He says back looking at her. And he was met with a peck on the lips.

He saw a grin on her face, and met it with his own.

"Well lets just hope it gets easier from here on in." She says.





It didn't get easier. If anything it got harder. Big Mac and the other stronger stallions were given enourmous logs with handles, called kanabō. The weapons were almost as tall as they were and heavy as all he'd get out. He was told he would be fighting with it when he was done.

The guys in the medium-heavy got katana, curved swords that were identical to that the samurai carried. The people given them looked at them curiously, they weren't quite sure what to think. The medium-lights were given big polearms with curved blades at one end, naginata they were called. The lights were given bows with shorter version of the katana called the wakizashi for close combat.

Big Mac and those given the kanabō were brought to a separate room, same case for the rest except for the ones given katana. He didn't know how the others would be trained, but he knew that this would not be easy.

Day after day he would come home sore and sweaty, and over a few months he got even bulkier than he was to begin with. He was given armor to train in once he had managed to use the kanabo with relative ease, which just made it harder because the armor was quite heavy. His armor, and all those of his fellow kanabojutsu trainees, wasn't unlike that of the samurai's armor.

It was made of heavy steel plates that covered his entire body,  but instead of a full helmet he was given a large mask of steel that covered his entire face instead of half. His mask looked just plain demonic, with a hideous face with enormous tusks and fangs that came from the mouth of the mask. It was called a sōmen, a full face mask. After that his already impressive strength was only growing, as was his flexibility, and he became a formidable warrior, just like everyone else who was under the samurai's watch.
> Akira's muse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira sat kneeling in front of a cherry tree outside the city on the side of the mountain. He looked out on the great mountain range, the forests and peaks, seeing the peace to be found there. A cherry blossom petal fell in front of him and he looked up at the tree, and spied something he never expected to see. He stood up and looked at it intently.

He heard footsteps from behind him and turned to see Luna come up behind him, smiling gently. He nodded at her, a smile on his own face, and looked back up at it. Luna came up next to him and tried to see what it was he was looking at.

"What are you so intent at seeing?" She asked once she gave up looking.

"That," He says gesturing at the trees branches, "The perfect cherry blossom. Back home, one could spend their entire life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life."

Luna looked at him amused. "You samurai are so difficult to understand. One minute you're teaching ponies how to kill others and the next you're talking about flowers. It's strange."

"Where I come from it would be strange to say such things." He says looking back at her, "Strange is such a fickle thing is it not?"

"I suppose so." Luna said sighing, My goodness he would be able to outwit Celestia if he wanted to!

Akira looked down from the tree and knelt as he was before and looked out upon the mountains. Luna knelt next to him, in a more ladylike fashion. He had his legs apart and sturdy with his hands resting firmly on his thighs, she knelt with her legs together and her hands neatly folded in her lap.

"I want to know, what are you doing so far outside the city?" She asks.

"I would ask the same of you." He states. "I came out here to seek tranquility, calm."

"I am no stranger to that." Luna told him, "Oddly enough this is the exact place I come to when I feel overwhelmed and need a place to breathe."

Akira nodded. Luna noticed a small piece of parchment in front of him as well as a paintbrush and an inkwell. "What are those for?"

He looked down at them, "Ah, I came here with the intent of writing a poem. However nothing has come to mind yet."

Luna nodded, "I didn't know you were a poet."

"All samurai study poetry among other things." He says. "A haiku is the most common form of poetry where I come from. And all samurai study this, and more."

"So a warrior and a romantic eh?" She teases, earning a chuckle from him.

Luna stood and bowed to him, as was his custom, and he was her teacher. "I wish you the best of luck with your poetry."

Akira watched her leave, then his mind suddenly hit a stroke of sensational inspiration. He began to write his poem.





Akira was wondering through the central city at random. His mind, once clear, was now plagued with an issue that he felt should have had an obvious answer. He paced endlessly, his poem in his hand. What was he thinking!? He wasn't supposed to write such things! Especially not in something so important and heartfelt!

He was so irked that he barely noticed one of the guards come up behind him. It was one of his own students. He tapped Akira on the shoulder to get his attention. Akira looked up at him, and the two exchanged bows.

"Sensei, you look troubled." He says. "What puts you on such an edge?"

"Nothing too serious." He says reassuringly. "I just need to decide something of a personal matter."

Akira did not realize he had dropped the poem when he turned to face his trainee. The trainee picked the piece of paper up and read it. He looked beyond shocked, but then smiled up at his sensei. He shook his head in an exasperated way.

"Sensei, if this is what troubles you, it shouldn't. She'll love it." He says giving the poem back to Akira.

"You don't know whom it is this is intended." Akira says taking it back.

"I'm pretty sure I do," came the reply as he glanced up at a balcony on which Princess Luna paced.

Akira held back a blush, knowing he had been caught.

"Why are you so troubled about this?" The guard asks.

"Because such things are not for me to think. It is forbidden!" Akira says forcefully.

"Maybe where you come from, but not here." He says back. "Go to her, the most she can say is no."

"That is all that would be said." Akira says trying to get out of this predicament. "She would never accept such a thing from me!"

"And why not?" He challenged.

"Because I am not worthy of someone of such status. I am just a samurai from another land. She is the monarch of an entire empire. How could I possibly approach someone like her?" Akira demands.

"The same way you would any other mare." He says plainly. "Go up to her, give her the poem, and go about your daily business. She will give you her answer when she decides."

"Nonsense! She is far to great of a woman for me to approach! The sheer audacity it would take would be so great that the gods themselves would smite me for it!" 

"Not true, if anything you would impress your gods beyond anything anyone ever has before."

"You don't know my gods, they are very strict on what is supposed to happen and to whom it happens too."

"Either way, from what you have told me of your ways, it is you duty as SAMURAi, to present this to her." He says. "I thought that fear was something you did not know. Yet here I find you scared of telling a mare you love her, I wonder what your samurai senseis would think." He says with finality.

Akira couldn't say anything to this, because his student was right. It WAS his duty to tell her, to give her the poem, to let her know what his opinion of her was. He took several deep breaths, before he finally decided to dive into the deep end, and hope for the best. He turned and left for Luna's chambers, hoping beyond hope that this would go well.
> Luna's answer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Up in the main keep of the great underground city, Luna paced along the balcony of her chambers. The balcony, and her chambers, weren’t very elaborate. The balcony upon which she expressed her frustration through the movement of feet across carved stone. The balcony was circular and roomy but not large, the railing was of carved stone (just like every other structure in the city) and the supports of it were simple pillar like constructs of circular design. The railing was about waist height for her, maybe a bit higher, and carved smooth.

HEr chambers weren’t too lavish. She had a simple but large bed set against the wall to the right of the door, set directly across from the balcony. On the other side of the bed was a dresser with tree items of clothing in it. One was a formal dress for occasion that almost never came along, and which she hated anyway. The second item of clothing was what would be worn beneath her armor (Samurai armor), meaning a pair of loose pants that would tuck into the greaves and two overcloths, jacket like wraparound shirts that tied at the hip, starting with the shitagi. The shitagi was an ankle length undershirt that would usually go over only the undergarments.

The third item of clothing was her everyday attire, a simple V-neck dress that resembled the shitagi in many ways. Other than that she only had her armor, which was on a stand in the far corner of the room along with her daisho and naginata.

She paced back and forth across the stone surface of her balcony and the thoughts that plagued her would not let up. Certain thoughts she wasn’t sure she wanted, but not entirely unwanted either. She continued to think and pace until voices reached her ears. She approached the railing and looked down into the gardens to see Akira and one of his trainees having a... heated discussion.

She couldn’t hear anything clearly, but they were clearly disagreeing. She leaned in further and tried to make out their words, no success. She just watched for a time, trying to keep her previous thoughts from coming back. After a time she lost interest in what was happening below and her mind betrayed her to defect to the previous thoughts. Her mind was filled with images of Akira up close, sometimes with armor, but mostly without, and sometimes with a weapon in hand, usually something else entirely. Often she saw him bare-chested, and could vividly picture his sculpted and hardened muscles, and she could only imagine how firm they would feel. Her heat wasn’t helping these thoughts leave.

After a few minutes it looked like Akira had finally been silenced, which grabbed her attention. She watched as Akira was no longer speaking and instead seemed to think. After another minute Akira nodded to his trainee and dismissed him. Then he appeared to breathe deeply, then began walking towards the castle. Odd.

Luna walked into her room and began to disrobe. Once she was only in her underwear she laid in her bed and tried to get sleep, only her mind wouldn’t let her. Images continued to creep into her mind despite her wishes, or at least her conscious wishes, of increasingly kinkier things involving a certain samurai. She couldn’t stop picturing things that made her grow red in the cheeks, and wet in a place lower. It wasn’t too long before her hand found her way down there to scratch the itch. She was almost disappointed when there was a knock on the door.

She managed to lower the heat level in her face and put a bathrobe on before she answered, and her blush threatened to blow up again when she found Akira waiting outside her door. In his hand was a piece of paper, she guessed it was the subject of his previous conversation. He bowed respectfully and handed her the paper, then he left her there.

She didn’t quite know how to react, but after a minute she closed the door, took off her bathrobe and began to read. The first time she read through she could hardly believe it, so she read again, same thing. She sat on her bedside, tears flowing from her eyes, and her heart bursting with immeasurable joy.

He did share her feelings, and she could not be happier about it. She kept rereading the poem he had written for the next ten minutes, the words effect on her endured. Her joy never dissipated, and she couldn’t stop even more perverted thoughts from going through her head, stupid heat. She laid down and tried to sleep.





Akira sat beneath the same cherry tree he had the previous day. His mind was irked beyond anything he had experienced before, none of the twenty three meditation techniques his zen master had taught him worked, not for this. His mind kept returning to the events of the previous evening.

What was I thinking!? his mind shouted.  You did your duty, you gave her the poem as you were expected to. But who am I to give her such a thing!? Your own student explained this last night, you are a samurai, you had every right, if not obligation, to give it to her.

He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice the mare walk up behind him, kneel down next to him and wait to catch his attention. It took a second but he looked up at her soon enough. She was smiling at him, practically glowing.

“When you gave that poem to me, I wondered why you would choose me out of all the mares you have met. Then I realized that why isn’t as important the fact that you did. You don’t know how truly happy that made me Akira,” She says, tears building in her eyes. “Thank you.”

He couldn’t hold back the smile that came to his face. She pulled him into a hug, they leaned against the trunk of the cherry tree, in the branches of which a late flower bloomed, a perfect blossom.
> Mac’s first battle.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you have to go?” Fluttershy asked, tears streaming from her eyes as she clung to Big Mac.

“I do Shy,” He says hugging her back. “I have to go. I know how ya feel but I have to go, if I don’t I won’t be of any use to the resistance. I’m no blacksmith and there are no farms here for me to work on. I won’t leave my comrades while they throw themselves at the enemy while I hang back.”

“I don’t want to loose you Mac.” Fluttershy said with a cracking voice.

Big Mac, being almost eight times larger than Fluttershy now, sat down on a nearby chair and pulled her in close. He just held her to him while she cried in worry. He knew what she meant, he wasn’t sure if he would make it back, but he sure as hell would try. He hugged Fluttershy tighter.

“Please, come back to me.” She cries, “Promise me you’ll come back.”

He sighs. “I can’t promise that Shy, what I can promise is that only death itself will stop me. I will do everything I can to get back to you, I always will.”

Fluttershy couldn’t say anything, her quiet sobs being the only thing coming from her mouth. After a few minutes she got off of him and let him up. He walked out of the house, grabbed his kanabo before leaving the building. He walked about ten feet, then turned back to look at her. Fluttershy was watching from the doorway, tears running freely down her face. He gave her a sad smile, then continued walking to the gates, where the rest were to gather.

After Mac had left, Fluttershy walked back into the house and slumped into one of the chairs. Burying her face in her hands she continued to sob. She prayed, more than ever she had before. After some time she saw one of her hawk friends come in. She, being Fluttershy, understood most all animals save the stray mythical being of yore.

“Weep not my friend.” The hawk says. “Your husband is much more capable than most.”

“Please, just watch him, and help him if you can.” She says through her tears.

“I will keep watch over your husband, friend.” The hawk says. “I will protect him as best I can”

So the hawk flew off to join Mac and the others on their march.





Big Mac stood with the other samurai behind the lines of the usual legionaries. The strategy appeared simple, the legionaries would have a shield wall behind the samurai, but then why were the samurai in the back? Big Mac didn’t know the plan, but he knew that they were to first engage an enemy army that was coming deep into their territory in search of their capital.

Big Mac was in the front of the samurai ranks, which had been placed in no particular order, there were all forms of the samurai on the front line except for the lights, as they were primarily archers. He had his kanabo over his shoulder for the march as there was no real way to sheathe the heavy club. The medium-heavies had sheathes for their katana and the medium-lights held their naginata like the legionaries held their spears.

Princess Luna and the samurai Akira stood at the front of the lines. The princess ordered them to march, the gates to the massive city opened to let them out. Mac had always wondered how the hell they opened in the first place because of their gargantuan size. Though he supposed he shouldn’t ponder it, they worked after all, and he had another problem to worry about.

He marched with the others for quite some time before they came across the army they were to fight. The legionaries formed the usual shield wall up front, but those in back formed a ramp, making it obvious to those behind what it was they were supposed to do. When the Equestrian line met theirs the samurai ran atop the ramp of shields and leapt into the frey over the shield wall.

Mac instantly raised his kanabo over his head and brought it down as he landed, nearly splitting the poor guy he hit in half. Then he began to do what his training taught him, to swing his kanabo without mercy, his immense strength helped him keep from being thrown off from the weight of the weapon. He sent the equestrians flying with each blow that landed. One managed to get behind him however and raised his sword to strike at Mac’s exposed back. Before he could, a hawk flew down and attacked his face, alerting Mac to the danger. He swung his kanabo at the mans feet and knocked him to his back, then crushed the mans head with his weapon.

This brutality, as well as effectiveness, frightened the equestrian soldiers beyond anything. The samurai left no survivors, and the last left alive was not like the rest, he wore steel plate armor with chain mail underneath, and he was left facing Mac. Mac struck the ground with his kanabo as an attempt at intimidation, the ground shook slightly, and the armored stallion seemed to have a moment of fear. This moment was used by Mac.

Mac attacked the stallion and swung his kanabo overhead to crush the stallion, it was dodged and followed up with a swing at his neck by the stallions sword. Reacting quickly Mac brought his weapon up and caught the blade, he responded by bashing his opponent. The stallion was thrown off balance, and Mac thrust his kanabo into the stallions gut, making him fall to his hands and knees. Mac stepped beside the stallion clutching his gut, and brought the kanabo down on the stallions back with a sickening crunch.

He pulled the kanabo out of the enorous dent in the dead stallions armor. He put the bloody weapon over his shoulder and surveyed the field, so many dead enemies, it made him feel an odd regret. He returned to the rest and they proceeded to march a bit longer, before setting up camp in a forest some ways away.
> New Occurences
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack walked through the town on her way to Twilights castle. She came into the main meeting room where she and the rest usually met up. The moonlight streamed through the windows at the top of the room and illuminated the otherwise dark room. The map table had changed to accommodate the increased range of the war, and that way they could tell where what things were when. So they could keep their own tabs on the war. Twilight was already there, so was rarity and pinkie pie.

Applejack took her seat around the table and gave it a once over, she saw several changes. The eastern front was weak on the Equestrian side with little known about the Thestral numbers. They had been pushed back six strongholds and thirteen villages in a week and a half. The central front was apparently evenly matched, the Equestrians had lost ground but did damage and prevented any further advance from the Thestrals for the time being. The western front was a little bit different, the Equestrians didn’t loose as much ground but were obviously under threat of attack at any second. The front seemed to be in favor of the Thestrals for now.

“This looks grim.” Came rainbow’s voice, startling Applejack.

“Don’t do that to me.” She says. “Ah miss the Rainbow that’d burst into a room shouting and announcin herself.”

Rainbow dash, who was right behind Applejack, laughed. “What can I say, I think I like scaring you.”

It was just then that Rainbow herself yelped in surprise. “And I Like scaring you.”

“Can it Swift.” She said. The stallions chuckling could be heard throughout the room.

“Calm down you two.” Cedar said coming in from another door. “We’re here to discuss a plan of action, not have fun with one another.” He grinned at Twilight. “That comes later.”

This made Twilight’s face burn with embarrassment. AJ and Rainbow caught onto this near instantly, they grinned at each other. AJ leaned her elbows on the table and raised her eyebrow at the two of them. Rainbow folded her arms across her chest and grinned.

“Is there somethin we should know about?” AJ asks.

Twilight couldn’t hold back the blush that reached her neck. “N-no. There’s nothing you need to find out about.”

“You sure about that Twi?” Rainbow Dash says.

“Oh please Dashie.” Swift says from the shadows, unseen. “You know very well that you can’t say anything.”

“Shut up you.” She says, the response was him laughing again.

“Anyway.” Cedar interrupts. “We need a planned course of action. I think the time is upon us.”

“Are you sure.” Rainbow asks.

Cedar was referring to a plan they had already cooked up but had yet to put into action. Now was indeed a good opportunity to do it, but they weren’t sure they were ready. The townspeople knew, everyone knew what the plan was but they didn’t know when. They all were ready for it at a moments notice, and they all had what they needed. The woodsmen had the stored logs ready, and the other resources were just waiting to be used. But they needed help.

“I’m certain.” Cedar says. “I will bring word to Princess Luna, and ask for help. The rest of you stay here and get the townspeople ready. Swift Arrow, Rainbow Dash, you two act as scouts and make sure there are no major enemy movements around us. Twilight, you handle the planning and organization on the operations. Applejack, you and your family need to move as much food stores as you can into the town as soon as possible. Pinkie... I don’t know what you can do, help Rarity make the armor or something.”

The group nodded in agreement. So Cedar left the building, but not before Rainbow Dash noticed that he wore a katana on his right hip now, now that she thought about it, so did Swift. She decided to ask him about it once they left. So the group dispersed to do their jobs, and Cedar left for The Deep to inform Princess Luna of the plan, and to ask for reinforcements.





Three days later, Princess Luna was overlooking a map in the command tent when Cedar came in and bowed. Akira looked at him as he came in.

“Princess Luna, I have news.” He says. “The small town of ponyvill is planning a revolt, all the citizens are in on it, but we will need reinforcements and an experienced military commander if we hope to keep it alive. I came here to ask you to send someone to help us.”

Luna thought for a second, after a moment of surprise of course, and looked at Akira afterwards. “What do you think Akira? Can you go and help them?”

“I can.” He replied without hesitation. “You need only ask it of me.”

Luna nodded. “Take two companions to help you. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Akira nodded and left the tent with the courier. He selected Big Mac and a katana user named Quicksilver. The three of them followed Cedar across the border and behind enemy lines to the town of ponyvill. This would prove interesting.





The townspeople were abuzz, they were all very tense for the arrival of their help. Twilight was organizing the construction of a palisade. Rarity was sewing armor by compacting wool between two sets of cloth, giving it flexibility while protecting the wearer to a degree. Pinkie pie was helping Applejack and her family move food into the city hall for storage. Rainbow Dash and Swift Arrow came back just then with reports.

“There is no enemy whatsoever to the west or south.” Rainbow says.

“None to the north or east either. But the help we’ve been expecting will arrive soon.”

At that moment Cedar approached Twilight and hugged her. “I see things have been going well.”

“Indeed they ha...” She didn’t finish when she saw Akira in his armor. She had to bite back a scream.

Applejack came over to meet him, that was when Big Mac spoke up. “AJ?”

They looked at him as he removed his Somen, revealing his identity.

“Brother?” She asks, just before pulling him into a hug. “What’re you doin out here?”

“I came with Akira to help y’all with your revolt.” He says. “It’s good to see you again sis.”
> The war Pt1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legionary Gladius of the fifth legion, Second cohort, sixth century was standing guard outside the camp, waiting for the word to join the rest of the troops in their advance. Gladius was a batpony stallion of a dark red coat and a black mane and pale blue eyes. He wore the standard helm of the legion, a metal cap with hinged cheek plates and an open face, his helm had no tassel or horsehair plume like the higher ranking officers. His armor was a set of steel bands put together and held in place by buckles at the front, one for each band. The shoulder plates consisted of five more bands of metal on each arm, the last two being shorter than the first three and strapped to the arm just above the elbow. He wore hard leather bracers on each hand that stopped just short of the elbow. On his left arm was strapped a large rectangular shield reinforced with iron, and in his right hand was a pilum, a throwing spear with half the shaft being wood, the rest being soft iron the bend on impact. At his waist was a gladius, which as his name suggests, he was rather handy with.

He heard the trumpet call him back to camp and join his century. He jogged through camp, his armor clanking as he went. The camp was abuzz, everyone was moving to find their place in the ranks and did so with practiced efficiency. The centurions were placed at the front left corner of every century, their helmet horshairs going sideways across the helm to show their rank. The Centurion of the first cohort’s first century had a white horsehair instead of a red one, showing he was the highest ranking centurion in the legion. Then in the back was the general, he issued the orders to a trumpeter in the back who would give bugle calls to signal movement of the different centuries.

The trumpeter would signal which century of which cohort would move by first signaling the number of the cohort then of the century, then issue the command. There were ten cohorts in a legion, all but the first cohort had six centuries of a hundred men, the first had five centuries of a hundred fifty men. So each legion was made of six thousand one hundred fifty men. The trumpeter would give one to ten short blasts, then one to six long ones then issue an order, all of which the centurions have memorized and would then issue to the men.

The trumpeter gave the signal to march, with no indication of which cohort or century he was talking to, so the order was issued to the entire legion. They began to step in unison, the legion set along a column with the first cohort centuries at the front and the rest following in order, double filed with their centuries, except for the first cohort first century, they were front and center sandwiched between the second and third centuries of the first cohort. They marched across a large field to where their enemy’s encampment was located. It was a fort that was built well, but not as well as the forts constructed by the legions of the Bat Clans.

The enemy didn’t see them, but they sounded their war horn to challenge them. The trumpeter fired off a long deep note that also signalled the legion to spread out. Every century, except for the first century of the first cohort, turned ninety degrees away from the first cohort first century, that had simply stopped in place, the result was a large line of legionaries across the plain, facing a now rallying but frightened enemy. They had positioned catapults in the forest a few days ago, and bombarded the fort to tell them that their pathetic walls wouldn’t protect them.

The Equestrian militia, which was pretty much all it was, were equipped with varying degrees of quality weapons and armor. They all had roundshileds and spears, some carried swords, axes or daggers as a backup, they had leather or mail armor, the only ones with the good plate armor were their generals and they weren’t too skilled in the first place. They came out to face the legion in vain, readying their weapons, knowing that this would be their last time doing so. Those back in Canterlot may think that the Bat Clans were weak, and unable to win, that they were naturally inferior, but the soldiers on the front knew better.

With no real way out, the Equestrians charged the legion, knowing full well that this would be their final hour. Gladius waited for the command from his centurion to launch his pilum, and when it came all legionaries launched their pila into the air and a cloud of throwing spears came down upon the enemy. Many were killed right then and there, the rest continued their charge. Gladius and his fellow legionaries drew their swords and braced for impact, their rectangular shields made a solid red wall that the equestrians slammed into, right before getting stabbed by the legion’s short swords.

Gladius was on the front line, and never cared when an equestrian was stabbed in front of him, either by his own gladius or his neighbors. His sword was soon coated in blood, and a large pile of enemy soldiers lay in front of the legion. The Equestrians were dumb enough to attack the center of the line, so the other two sides swung in like doors and trapped them inside, killing them off from all sides. The Equestrians fought to the last soldier, and they fought well despite not killing many legionaries if they killed any at all.

Gladius helped with the cleanup, meaning they just dragged all the bodies into a tighter pile and burned them. He held no sympathy for the Equestrians, they were responsible for the torture of his kind, his kin. He hated them, and he would kill every last Equestrian soldier he came across.

He and his century were ordered to search the fort for any resources, aside from the metal and leather they took off the corpses of the Equestrian soldiers. Gladius moved to the back of the fort and with him was his decani (Group of ten soldiers, led by a decanus), He found what was essentially a cellar with a great deal of food stores, and something else. He called another decani in to help with the removal of the resources while he and his decani searched further down. Dug beneath the cellar was a prison, where several mares were held. They appeared to be fed very little and had barely any clothes. All were very dirty, and obviously frightened.

“Get these cells open!” He ordered his decani.

The ten soldiers, Gladius among them, began to work on getting the locks open. It took some time but eventually they opened.

“Get the general over here!” He says to one man.

“Yes sir!” Came the reply.

The soldier left, and nine remained. Gladius came into the cell, the mares shrank from him, fear in their eyes.

“P-please,” One mare stuttered, “d-d-dont h-hurt us. P-please.”

He shushes them, “we aren’t going to hurt you. Please, come with us, we will see you fed and taken care of.”

The mares were skeptical, but the thought of food seemed to trump all worry. The mare who had spoken was the first to get up, she managed to stumble over to him on wobbly legs. She just about fell, only to be caught by Gladius. He put her arm about his shoulders and helped her out.

“Help them.” He tells his decani.

They complied, each helping a mare to their feet and supporting them as they stumbled along. When Gladius made it back outside into the middle of the fort he helped the first mare sit down on a barrel, and saw the general marching over when he stood back up. He snapped to attention and saluted the general holding his arm out away from his body.

“At ease, what happened?”

He put the salute down. “Me and my decani found a small prison beneath the cellar, mares were in the cells, no one else. All of them are weak and look starved. This is one of them.”

The general nodded to Gladius, then crouched in front of the mare. “What is your name?”

“Tulip.” She says simply.

“Alright Tulip,” He says. “We aren’t going to hurt you or your friends. We will get you fed and cleaned up, you are in no danger here.”

Tulip nodded. 

“Gladius,” He says. “You will be in charge of taking care of these mares.”

“Sir, no disrespect, but I don’t have the authority to do such a thing. I am only a decanus, only a centurion or higher can carry enough command to feed these mares.”

“Then its a good thing there is a place open for one.” He says with a smile. “You’ve just been promoted, centurion.”

Gladius was speechless for a moment, then managed to stutter. “Th-thank you sir.”

The general nodded. Then marched away, while one of the soldiers near him handed him a new helmet, this one with the sideways horsehair plume of the centurion, but it was white. White was the color of the first cohorts first centurion, the highest centurion ranking there was. But that wasn’t the time to be too proud of himself. He strapped the helmet on and moved back below to help the mares come up. There ended up being fifty three in all. Gladius and many of the legionaries brought them to where the camp was set up and put them near the mess tent. Gladius walked in and said that they needed to prepare a meal for fifty three, they did so at once after he told them what they had found.

The mares were fed and clothed, they were given a few tents for three or four to share and some fur sleeping bags. They were put closest to the center of the camp, each with a soldiers tent next to them in the event of them being attacked. Incidentally Gladius was tented right next to Tulip’s tent. When he was walking to his tent he found Tulip waiting there for him.

“Is something wrong?” He asks. 

“No, I wanted to thank you, on behalf of all of us. You... saved us.” She says. “And we couldn’t ever repay you.”

“Why were you there anyway?” He asks.

“It’s a long story.” She says. “To put it bluntly, a law was declared that anyone with potent or recent batpony ancestry was to be denied any jobs whatsoever, and fired from their jobs at the time of the decree. Anyone with potent batpony ancestry who owned a business had their assets seized by the royal guard, and were cast to the street. I was a working mare until that time, my great grandfather was a batpony. So I had to steal to feed myself, as is the case with most mares here. I was caught and arrested, they sent me, along with all the mares you saw, here. And they... they.” Her voice broke and was nearly brought to tears. “They raped us, repeatedly.”
> The war Pt2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legionary Scutum of the thirteenth legion, First Cohort, Third Century was beginning to grow impatient. They had been marching through a heavy fog for three days across a mountainous terrain to get to the Equestrian forces fortified in a narrow pass in the mountains. The snow was thick and difficult to walk in, his feet kept warm by the fur lining in his sandals (Roman sandals) and the fur that grew on his feet naturally. He also had the fur padding beneath his Lorica Segmentata (Roman plate armor) Helped keep out the cold from his body, and the wool lining of his helm also helped with that. His own Scutum (The roman shield he was named after) served as a fine windbreaker.

Scutum, the legionary, was a rather large stallion even by northern standards. He was a full head and a half taller than his centurion, and about twice as thick, he was so large that they had to have a set of armor custom made for his proportions. His gladius was also a bit longer than most and his Scutum larger, so he was placed on the front lines. Scutum was so named because of his size, strength and the fact that is was near impossible to move him by force from any direction. He was greatly respected by his comrades for his strength, loyalty and bravery on the field. He was so respected that he had a big promotion in his near future, but first he had to help kill this last batch of Equestian soldiers.

The thirteenth had split into two groups, to go around the mountain and close in on the Equestrians from both sides. This would force them into a stand and virtually obliterate the entire Equestrian force. Any captured would be either A;crucified B;Impaled or C;taken for the gladiator contests in the capital city. They didn’t take slaves for work.

Scutum busied his thoughts as he marched, his mind eventually wandered to the now famous Samurai army Princess Luna had put together. He had heard that the samurai had taken to “Head-hunting”. Rumor was that the Samurai had this running competition between themselves, so that they could see who could collect the most heads. They apparently carried open topped sacks on their back so that they could quickly put a head in it after cutting it off. It was rather gruesome but also quite entertaining for both the legions and Samurai alike, as well as intimidating for the enemy, as their soldiers never knew if their head would be the next one added to a collection.

He grinned as he remembered an actual case of him being witness to such barbarism. He watched as a katana wielding samurai cut the head from an Equestrian soldier and when the head rolled around on the ground he stabbed it, then putting the blade over his shoulder and drew it across to push the head of into a sack on his back. Scutum wasn’t really bothered by it, but didn’t entirely like it either.

He was shaken from his thought when they reached the pass. Inside they saw a camp of Equestrian soldiers, rather large and clearly well equipped. And these weren’t the usual Equestrian soldiers, he couldn’t quite place the difference from that distance but he knew they weren’t the common rabble they usually faced. 

He was still thinking when he heard a loud scream, and it sounded feminine. He looked to the place it came from and found several mares tied to posts in the center of the camp, several naked and in the middle of being raped. No one said anything, but the atmosphere around them seemed to raise a good twenty degrees. The legion, as was clear by the expressions and body language of those around him, was angry.

They were given the order to form their battle lines, and they were spotted. Both parties began to form lines, and that was when he saw the difference between these soldiers and the usual militia. These soldiers were uniform, they each carried large roundshields reinforced with iron, pikes of about eight meters long and what appeared to be Cowrinthian helms.



The line of Equestrians then did something that wasn’t unlike what their legions did. They locked shields and lowered their spears. The legion was suddenly faced by a wall of shields with a literal forest of spears protruding from it (Macedonian phalanx). The legion in response marched forward, and after they got close enough each legionary launched their pila and drew their gladius. The two clouds of throwing spears did a small number on the shield wall, but didn’t do too much damage. The legion continued to close in, and when they reached the end of the spears they began to move back and forth. Stabbing into their ranks was not one row but five rows of spearheads that began stabbing, only for the end to be a wall of shields that was near impenetrable from the front.

The legion suffered many losses, in exchenge for very few. Scutum had be caught on the arm by a spear once or twice and wasn’t too happy about it, he managed to make it to the line and began stabbing over the shields and managed to kill a few, but not enough to make a difference. That was when the second half of the legion arrived. They launched their pila and began to stab into the back of the Equestrian formation, which was quickly destroyed afterwards. Nearly a fourth of the legion was killed, and the legions general had much to think about after that.

One of the enemy soldiers survived and was crucified on the spot of the battle, his armor and weapons taken for inspection. His armor wasn’t unlike that of the lorica segmentata used by the legionaries, it was a leather breastplate that was treated and hardened with two leather plates to act as shoulder guards. His greaves and bracers were of iron and as was his helm. His shield was of thick wood with a hard leather covering and iron reinforcements for a rim and across the middle.

The legion moved to the middle of the enemy camp to where they found the mares. They were obviously frightened, and quite worried about what would come afterwards. They were cut loose and given some clothing, this included the armor from the enemy soldiers. This proved it, the Equestrians were sending convicted criminals and those with batpony ancestry up to the front for their “sentences”, which was clearly satisfying the Equestrian soldiers. They head about this from the fifth legion in the east, and were horrified to see that it wasn’t a one-time thing.

The mares stayed close to legionaries, as though afraid more Equestrians would show up and start defiling them again. Scutum was one such lucky legionary, a particularly attractive mare who was obviously one of the more used of the rest. She stayed with him, and he didn’t complain. She conversed with him a lot, and he was glad for the company. 

“Where are you from miss...” He says.

“Breeze,” She tells him. “I’m Soft Breeze from Ponyvill. Where are you from?”

“I am from Maul,” He says, “A region in the northernmost reaches of the Bat-Clans territory. It’s so named because of the once violent way of life. When the legions came and brought order to the place the name no longer fit, because you weren’t getting mauled or doing any mauling. The legions brought public order, public health, accessible water, sanitation you name it, they did a lot for the ponies in the region. But the history is reflected in its inhabitants, we tend to be on the larger spectrum of things.”

“I can see that.” She says earning a light laugh from the legionary.

“It’s almost time for mess, I hope you have a strong stomach because that chow is nasty.” He says getting up and offering her a hand.

She giggles a little at his words and accepts his hand while standing. “It can’t be any nastier than what we were fed by those... Soldiers. At least this isn’t a bodily fluid you’re feeding us.”

This got his attention. “That’s what they gave you to eat?!”

“Yes sadly.” She says. “And we can’t thank you enough for getting us out of that.”

“I cant see why anyone would want to put someone through that.” He growls.

“Hey, we’re fine now aren’t we. And we have you to thank for that.” She says. “The past is in the past. Now lets get some food.”

He didn’t really want to let it go, but he pushed it aside for the time being. They walked into the mess tent and got themselves some quality legion slop, made from what he could only guess was a mixture of beans, protein powder, rat crap and mud. The stuff was disgusting but it was still nutritious, and it kept them going. He conversed with Soft Breeze a bit while they ate, and afterwards he got up and offered to see her to her tent.

“I don’t have one.” She says. “There wasn’t enough. I was hoping I could stay with you.”

He wasn’t sure how to answer, but he nodded and replied with, “Of course you can. My tent mate was killed in the battle so I would be lonely without the company.”

She smiled at him, then thanked him again and accompanied him into his tent. No shenanigans took place, only sleeping.
> The war Pt3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Centurion Scorpio of the eight legion, first cohort, third century stood in front of the city gates. The Equestrians had marshaled a force to take the border city of Millwood, so named because of the many lumber mills in the city. The force was twice their size and contained three units of two hundred fifty six men for their phalanx infantry. They had developed a very effective way of countering this, they had put up a second wall around the first one, between the two they had dug pits filled with spikes and pitch for burning. The two walls were connected by drawbridges that could be drawn up from the inner wall. They also had a main drawbridge for entering the city so that they would have a difficult time taking the walls, meaning that the main drawbridge was pretty much their only choice.

The legions had developed a unit that used spears instead of the gladius to counter the effectiveness of the enemy spears range even more than their scuti already did. The legionaries would put these units behind the drawbridge, there the back of the phalanx was exposed to the archers on the wall, their ranks would be reduced from behind while they were held at bay by the spear wielding legionaries, thus rendering their phalanx useless in attacks. The legionaries behind the spearwall would use their pila (throwing spears) against the front of the formation and rendering their movements hindered by shafts hanging from their shields or killing them.

Centurion Scorpio had his long spear held in the waiting position, same with the rest of his men. The archers atop the wall began to fire outward, the enemy had been spotted. Scorpio couldn’t see anything, but he heard the gate of the front wall shake when a ram struck it. The gate continued to boom upon contact with the ram, and the three cross beams strained to keep it closed, until they failed. The doors swung inward and the phalanx infantry dropped the ram and began to march towards his century. 

He gave the order to lower their spears and ready their shields. Their scuti (Large square shields) had a little cut slot in the upper right hand corner to hold the spear and make it easier on their arms. The phalanx met the shield wall, and the legions archers began to shoot into their back. The phalanx didn’t last very long, their men continued to replace the ones who fell in front of them, but it was not enough. The superior training, equipment, discipline and conviction of the legionaries proved too much for them. The legions marched out of the city and met the rest of the Equestrian force, which ran after some time back to their camp.

The legion did not stop there, they emmediately rallied to march after them. They march to where their camp was spotted, and found it nearly struck. They marched on, the Equestrians fled, disorganized and disheartened they did not care where they ran to, only that they got away. The legion chased them down, and each group was taken prisoner and either crucified or impaled on the main road.

When they returned to where the Equestrian camp was, they found what had become infamous knowledge amongst the legions, the slaves. The mares who had been either convicted criminals or descended from batponies to be sent to the front to relieve the Equestrians soldiers frustrations. The mares were freed and taken to the city, where they were given shelter and food. The legion moved on.

They marched southward, over the frozen mountains and into what was the remnants of the Crystal Empire, now a crystal fortress meant to keep the legions at bay, it was time for it to fall. Unlike the legions, the Equestrians didn’t put their wall foundations forty feet below the ground to prevent tunneling. That was how the legion was to get in.

Thanks to almost all of the legion consisting of batponies, they were able to tunnel easily in the dark. The night fell and Scorpio lead his century into the night, and to the wall. They began to dig, in one row ten ponies wide they dug under the wall, and eventually coming up behind the wall. That was when the rest of the legion came in. They marched down the city streets long before the Equestrian force could martial, and they were defeated quite easily.

Scorpio was assigned to city patrol that night, and his men had brought some liberated mares with them. He was walking along the front of the castle, when he saw a young stallion painting something on the front of the castle. He gestured for his men to stay put and approached the stallion alone. He grabbed the stallions shoulder, making him turn around suddenly his eyes wide with surprise and fear.

“What’s this then?” He asks, then looks at the graffiti. “THESTRALES EUNT DOMUS?! Ponies call “Thestrales they go the house”?!”

The stallion stammered. “It s-says Thestrals g-go home.”

“No it doesn’t.” Scorpio says after a brief pause. “What’s Latin for Thestral?” When no answer came he shook the stallion roughly saying. “Come on.”

Panicked the stallion answered. “Thestralus?”

“Goes like?”

“Alus?”

“Vocative plural of Alus is?”

“Ali?” The stallion guessed.

Taking the paintbrush from the stallion Scorpio corrected his first error. “Thestrali. EUNT, what is EUNT?”

“Uh, go.”

“Conjugate the verb to go.” Scorpio said impatiently.

“Ire, Ero, Is, It, Imis, Itis, Eunt.” He says rapidly and desperately saying the conjugations.

“So eunt is?”

“Third person plural... present indicative. They go!” The stallion says.

“Ah, but “Go Home” Is an order, so you must use the...?” He says twisting the stallion’s ear painfully.

“The Imparative!” He says with a higher pitched voice through the pain.

“Which is?”

“I, I!”

“How many thestrals?”

“Plural! Plural! Ite! Ite!” He almost screams.

“Ite,” Scorpio says correcting the second mistake. “Domus, nominative, “Go home” is motion towards isn’t it boy?”

“Dative?” He says, the result was getting a sword pressed to his throat. “No, No not dative! Not dative! The accusative, accusative sir, “Domum” sir, “Ad domum”!”

“Accept when “Domus” takes the?”

“The locative sir!”

“Which is?”

“Domum!!!”

“Domum,” Scorpio says finally releasing the poor guy from his grasp and correcting his final mistake. “Understand?”

“Yes sir!”

“Good, now write that a hundred times.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir, hail Luna and everything sir!” The stallion said through his relieved pants.

“Hail Luna! If its not done by morning, I’ll cut your balls off.” He says before returning to his patrol.

“Yes sir!”





The next morning, the stallion had finished his sentences and called to the guards at the bottom of the ladder. “Finished!”

“Right,” One of them said. “Now don’t do it again.”
> Rival Unions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blueblood marched through the halls of the castle towards the central conference room. He was told that two diplomats waited for him, he expected them to be from the Bat Clans to either demand or offer a surrender. His armored bootsteps echoed down the hallway as he marched in a hurried fashion. Behind him were eight nobles, all wearing the edvanced plate armor of the day and carrying poleaxes with longswords at their hips. He struck the doors to the conference room and found two diplomats there, but one was a griffin and the other a Minotaur. He stopped in front of them and they bowed respectfully once he did.

“King Blueblood,” The griffin says. “I am Owl Feather, and I have come to speak on behalf of my king. This is Stonehand, he has come to speak on behalf of his. We both wish to discuss relations between our nations.”

“I see.” Blueblood says. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

“Both of our kings have come to the conclusion that you losing this war would be very bad for us, so we have come to offer our aid, in exchange for some of the conquered territory.” Stonehand says. “Mine for farmland, his for mining resources. If this agreed to you will five units of each of our warriors to fight with you against these Bat Clans.”

Blueblood thought for a minute, how much land did they want and how much could he keep. He hated giving up land, but he wasn’t so dumb as to not see that he was losing the war at that time. If he decided to give up land in exchange for help he stood a much better chance at winning, but neither did he want to give up all the land conquered.

“If I agree to this, how much land to I need to give to each of you?”

“My king wants five hundred acres of farmland.” Stonehand tells him. “And the griffins want three or four mining facilities that are rich in recourses.”

“It can be done,” Blueblood says.

“My king also wishes to know what you want to do with any enemy civilians captured.” Owl Feather inquires.

Blueblood hadn’t actually thought about it, but now that it came up he emmediately knew what to do with them. “The stallions will be enslaved for work, the mares enslaved for pleasure. If you wish to have a share then that can easily be arranged.”

“Sounds like we have a deal.” Owl Feather says.

Blueblood and the diplomats signed the necessary paperwork and the diplomats left with their copies. Blueblood left to demand Celestia’s involvement in the war for the third time that day, and when he came in he saw he quickly hide an envelope in her dress. He approached her and swiftly removed it before reading it through, the contents angered him, and who it was addressed to even more so.

“I should have guessed.” He says. “You’ve been feeding them information. No longer. Guards!”

They came into the room and awaited his orders.

“This whore has been feeding information to the enemy, if she believes herself one of them she will find out what we do to them. Take her to the dungeons, where we keep those monstrosities.”

The guards saw the letter, and emmediately placed Celestia in irons before dragging her down to The Pit, where they kept and tortured Batponies. Celestia would never forget what she witnessed down there.





Luna stood against the map table of the command tent in the middle of the camp. Her generals were with her and they were discussing their next move in the strategy. Luna was looking over the map at the locations of the legions, and looked at ponyvill where a figurine of a samurai stood, indicating that it was garrisoned mainly by samurai, namely Akira. Luna had read over the reports and had learned that he had chosen Big Mac as one of his companions, and that Fluttershy had joined the medical corps and was to be detached to Ponyvill with a squad of professionals to assist with any medical needs.

Luna looked up when a scout entered the tent. “Princess, a group of neutral warriors rides to us on what appear to be bears and carrying the flag of truce. They wish to speak with you.”

“Take me to them.” Luna says grabbing her naginata, putting on her helmet and tightening her menpo.

Luna followed the scout to the forts walls. The fort they had set up was in a league of its own concerning temporary defense. It was surrounded on all sides by three separate palisades, each getting higher as they went in and separated by spike filled trenches. Set at even intervals were towers at each wall, the innermost towers had two levels, the bottom one for a ballista and the top for archers, the ones on the first and second wall only had archer platforms. Each wall had a gate, getting progressively thicker as they went in. Luna ordered these gates to open, and when they did sure enough a group of warriors riding on the backs of bearlike creatures rode in.

The warriors were bulky, with large horns and dangerous looking weapons. The one in the lead wore a shirt of mail that came down to his knees and split down the middle use below the crotch to allow free leg movement, over that he had a vest of scaled armor. On his head was a cap of steel with eye and nose guards with cheekplates coming down from the eye guards. There was a skirt of mail that came down on all sides of his head much like that of a samurai helmet.



In his left had was a large wooden roundshield and at his hip was a straight double edged sword the likes of which she had never seen before.



In his right hand he held a broad bladed spear, on which was a white flag.

“Am I to assume you are in command here?” The man asks, receiving a nod from Luna.

“I am Jarl Ironbeard. I have come to speak on behalf of my people, the Oxen. We wish to offer our help in this war, in exchange for farmland.” He says. “My people are strong but they cannot live without food, and food is scarce where we come from.”

“I would be happy to assist you and your people Jarl Ironbeard.” Luna tells him. “What assistance can you offer me?”

“I have very good land warriors, as do you. But you lack a navy, something my people thrive with.” He tells her. “I will give you a navy and any land warriors you need that I can provide, for three hundred acres of fertile land to grow the food my people need.”

Luna thought about this. “Come with me, I must consult my generals for this decision.”

The jarl dismounted his beast and left his spear with his men. Then he followed Luna to the command tent, walking in he saw twelve generals, all of which were a good two heads smaller than he. They looked at him, then to Luna.

“Princess, who is this?” One of them asked.

“Princess?” The jarl says bowing to her. “Forgive me, I had no idea that I stood in the presence of a royal.”

“No need for bowing jarl.” Luna tells him. “You lead your people, I lead mine, we are equal. But inform my generals of your offer.”

“I offer the assistance of my people for farmland, three hundred acres to be precise. We will give you a navy, and possibly cavalry if you so need. My people are strong, it to stay that way they need food, which is scarce in my homeland.”

The generals looked stunned for a moment, then turned to one another. “This is a good opportunity, a navy will give us an edge we haven’t had for the entirety of this war, we can catch the Equestrians off guard.”

“But three hundred acres is a lot to give up.”

“Not really if you consider how much is to be conquered, and considering most of our main cities are underground we can afford to give them more.”

“A fair point, and whatever cavalry is I can guess the Equestrians don’t have it.”

“Cavalry is a unit of warriors mounted on war-beasts.” Jarl Ironbeard cuts in. “We have War-Bears that we ride, they give us speed and good contact power. A charge could easily break a line of unprepared warriors, even prepared ones can get broken up by a good charge.”

This set the generals to another few minutes of discussion. But ultimately the decision was made by Luna.

“Jarl Ironbeard, your terms are more than acceptable. I look forward to seeing your warriors in action.”
> The Siege of Ponyvill pt1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira had overseen the construction of defenses around Ponyville. Which essentially consisted of a trench and wall behind it made of the dirt pulled from the ditch. The trench was filled with sharpened stakes to kill anyone who would fall in. There was one way into the town and that was a path of raised earth to let the ponies of the town in and out with a wooden gate to defend the position. 

Akira had also overseen the basic training of the fighting militia of Ponyvill. He had the local metalworker make simple steel heads for the yari spear.


It’s handling wasn’t too different from that of the naginata. He taught them all basic fighting techniques using the yari as well as unarmed combat in the case that they lost their weapon. The two rangers, Rainbow Dash and Swift Arrow, taught two small units of archers how to properly fire a bow. These archers would be trained to fire as a unit, not as individuals, that way they would send a cloud of arrows into the sky to rain down on the enemy. They were drilled numerous times, only stopping to eat and sleep.

Akira was practicing his forms with his Nodachi when he heard the battle horn from the wall. Akira ran quickly through the town to see what the threat was, and saw a large Equestrian horde camped some ways away. Akira ordered the stallion who blew the horn to get all of the militia out and all of those who did not train to get into the town hall.

“Tell them to be ready for the “Bowling Ball” tactic.” He says to the man.

Akira had come up with this tactic himself, but not the name. He explained it to some of the ponies there and they drew the similarity between it and bowling, which was apparently a sport there in Equestria. He himself got down off the dirt-mound-wall and waited for all of the militia and his two samurai companions to gather together at the gate. Akira nodded to the two rangers who got on top of two houses to see over the wall, each behind their designated archer unit. Akira stood in front of his yari wielding units and prepared for the attack.

They didn’t have to wait long. Rainbow shouted “They’re coming!” Only a few seconds before they heard the booming sound of a ram being slammed against a fortified gate. They waited for it to succeed, and when they heard the reinforcement bar crack Mac got ready. When it did crack and the gate burst open Mac charged into the enemy horde, holding his kanabo across his chest. He hit the unaware enemy horde, which could only approach double file because of how narrow the bridge was, and either crushed them beneath him or threw them over the edge into the pit of spikes. Akira and Quicksilver followed emmediately by the yari wielders charged in after him.

After they made it across the forty foot bridge Akira and quicksilver split into two different directions followed each by a number of their yari wielding militia. The Ponyvill militia weren’t all too effective, after all, it was hard taking a life, but they did better as time went on and the Equestrian forces faltered in the face of such sudden and fearsome resistance. The Equestrian force was routed.

But not all of them were dealt with. There was still an enormous camp filled with Equestrian forces, which was not a good thing. Akira and the others returned to the town, repaired the gate as quickly as possible and remained on alert. Akira returned to his personal training, where several of the townsponies discreetly observed him from their homes. While he didn’t show off, he didn’t try any of the more complex movements, he was still quick with his obviously heavy sword, and clearly quite skilled. Twilight also came out to watch him for a time, before approaching him to speak.

“Akira?” She asks.

“Yes?” He responds. “What do you need?”

“I wanted to ask you, why did you side with us?”

Akira hesitated, he wasn’t entirely sure why. “Because my instinct told me to. I saw that your people needed help, and I helped. I saw that they were suffering, I sought to end that. There is little more to it than that, I went with my gut.”

“I guess,” She says not entirely convinced. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Akira was about to return to training when Quicksilver came up. “Sensei, another force is approaching.”

“Tell the militia to prepare for the next wave, they know which drill to take up next.”

“Yes sensei.” She says before running off towards the gate.

“Sensei?” Twilight asks.

“It means ‘teacher’, I trained all of the samurai in the Clans army, therefore I am their ‘Sensei’ or ‘teacher’.” Akira explains, “But before you bombard me with questions I must go see that this works.”

So leaving the lavender colored mare behind, Akira returned to the gate. The tactic was a boxing tactic, they had the yari spearmen lined up on either side of the gate facing towards each other and a third line facing towards the gate. Behind the first two lines were archers to fire on those coming over the bridge. Akira, Mac and Quicksilver were in the space surrounded by the spearmen and the gate, they would fight the horde like idividual warriors.

Before long the gate was once again set upon by a ram, the booming of the contact echoed across the cool nigh air. The crack of the bracebeam holding the gate closed was heard by all, and so was when the gate burst open for the second time that night. In flooded numerous enemies, only for them to be repeatedly stabbed by the yari on both sides of them or to face three very deadly warriors, all three of which had little problem killing them. The bodies piled, and the enemy fell back, all but one. He was another knight, one with the heavy plate armor used by the Equestrian nobles.

He carried a poleax, (Or halberd.) he had a sword at his hip and a feathered tassel at the top of his helm. Over his chestpeice was a sleeveless longcoat bearing a golden scale on a grey background, he was a noble. Mac, being the only one with a weapon that ignores armor, faced him.

The noble didn’t wait, he trust the spear tip of his halberd at Mac’s chest. Mac redirected the blow to miss him, and pull the stallion foreward. He struck the stallion with the pommel of his kanabo, and kicked the stallions left knee in. The sickening crunch of bones shattering filled the air and several of the militia grimaced at the sight. Mac then dropped his kanabo and picked the stallion up. The stallion was facing the air as he was held over Mac’s head, and very quickly Mac brought him down on his armored knee, breaking the poor guy’s spinal column. Thus the first of many battles was won.
> Siege of Ponyville pt2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight was walking through the park in central Ponyville when she came across Akira kneeling in the trees. She carefully came up behind him to get a looks at what she was doing and found an odd looking bow on his lap. It looked about 245cm in length and the most odd thing about it was that the grip, being wrapped in leather, was about at the one third mark up the shaft and it was apparently made of bamboo or the like. The string looked to be made of hemp and was set to the side for later stringing.

“I can hear your thoughts running. Ask what questions you will and I will answer.” He tells her.

“Okay, what kind of bow is this?”

“It is called “Yumi” back in Japan, my home. The yumis length varies depending on the height of the archer, and always stands a little bit taller than the archer themselves.”

“Okay, how are they made and how would a warrior, or samurai, know how to make one?”

“Well for one thing a samurai isn’t an occupation, its a social status. All samurai are warriors yes, but they have professions within the samurai class. Me, I happened to be a bowyer.”

“Okay, so how are they made?”

“You take bamboo, which your pink friend, by no means that I can possibly understand, provided for me. It is five piece bamboo with a laminated core, wooden sides and bamboo on the front and back. The string is often woven hemp or animal gut. In this case hemp.”

“And the arrows fired?”

“They are called “ya” in Japan.” He tells her while putting the finishing touches on the bow. “They have long fletchings and the arrowheads are made from the same steel and the same methods as our swords. They can also be forked or have singular points.”

“How is it’s accuracy?”

“Depends on the skill of the archer.”

“Okay. What is the range?”

“Depends on the length of the bow.”

“Okay then, would you mind demonstrating your skill with this?”

“When its finished I’d be happy to.”

Twilight nodded and he finished stringing the bow before beginning to work on the arrows. He spent some time doing that when Twilight left. He made a quiver, specifically a shiko quiver, which consisted of a small box-like bottom with a stem running from one end of it to the top with a ring-like holder to keep the arrows in place for grabbing. 



After that he attached the quiver to his obi and put the Yumi in with it. After that he moved to the practice yard that they had set up for the archer militia. Pulling the Yumi out and selecting an arrow he knocked the arrow and pulled the string back, starting by holding the bow over his head and bringing his arms down and apart until he was in the right position. Several feet away the two rangers were observing.

“So, do you think that’s a good bow?” Rainbow asks.

“I think that it is if you know how to use it.” Swift replies holding his forefinger and thumb up against his chin.

“I think that an asymmetrical bow like that can’t possibly be very useful.” Rainbow tells him folding her arms.

“I think you should never underestimate the samurai.” Swift says.

Not a second later Akira let the arrow fly, the arms of the bow flew foreward and even overextended in the direction the arrow would fly. And the arrow let loose sped silently across the fifty foot distance to the target, and struck the center. Rainbow’s jaw dropped slightly in surprise at the accuracy of the bow.

“I told you,” Swift says, “don’t underestimate the samurai.”

Swift patted her back twice before he approached Akira. “Akira, that was quite a shot.”

“My thanks.” He replies.

“I was wondering, could you show me some of how to use it. I’ll be sticking to my longbow when it comes down to it but I’d like the experience.”

“I see no harm. This bow won’t work best for you because your stature is a bit less than mine but it should do for a practice round.” Akira says.

“O-kay.” He says drawing out the O syllable. 

“It was no insult Swift Arrow, just a fact. The yumi is sized based off of the height of the archer in question, it is quite sensitive so too great a difference will render the yumi useless.” Akira says handing the yumi and an arrow to Swift.

“Set your feet as such,” Akira tells him demonstrating and waiting for Swift to do the same. “Nock the arrow and raise the bow and arrow above your head like so. Then bring your arms down in this way so that they will end up in the proper position. Breathe in, aim and release.”

Swift Arrow did as Akira instructed and the arrow he fired struck the target in one of the outer rings, he had expected worse. Swift nodded before handing the yumi back to Akira, then stepping aside and letting him shoot. Akira began to fire off arrows at the target, fast and accurate, not as fast as the rangers with their longbows but just as accurate. 

Akira continued to practice his yumi archery until he heard the attack horn blow. Retrieving his arrows and replacing them in the quiver before he walked off to the wall, to see a horde of Equestrian soldiers lined up outside the wall. They didn’t try to cross the bridge though, they had made their own bridges to use to get into the town. There were exactly six of these portable bridges, two of which could be covered by the archer units, two could be covered by the rangers, one by Akira and the last by the ashigaru (because lets face it, that’s what they are).

Akira and the rangers began to shoot into the horde, so did the archer units. The spearmen were ordered to split up with roughly equal numbers to back up the archers, rangers and samurai and to completely cover a bridge. When the units began to come over their bridges they began to be shot at, or simply ran into a wall of spearheads. Akira released all of his arrows the drew his nodachi from its saya (sheath) on his back (Yes that was a real thing), and began to cut the enemy down or knock them off of the bridge into the trench of spikes. 

Before long the enemy had lost all of its numbers to a simple funneling tactic, they had won, or so they thought.
> Siege of Ponyvill pt3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira lay awake in bed, his mind plagued by something but he couldn’t tell what. After a long time of not getting any sleep he got up and dressed himself and sticking his daisho in his obi before leaving the building for a walk to clear his head. He strode through the town streets slowly, trying to fix the irk in his head. After a while he stopped, he thought he heard something off to his left. 

He slowly crept off in that direction, his hand on the hilt of his katana. He thought he saw a figure in the shadows behind a building, after a few seconds of looking he saw more of them. 

His first thought was, shinobi no mana.

He partially drew his katana and slowly crept closer, and he soon identified them as enemies. He drew his katana entirely before he came into the alley. The enemies saw him coming, the first one didn’t have the time to draw his sword before his head was cut off. The others did, and they had more skill than the typical Equestrian, but most ran from him. Those who stayed were slain, although with a little bit more difficulty than normal. Akira shouted out “Guerrillas!”

The town lit up quickly, the militia coming out to fight whatever enemy there was. At the same time the attack horn sounded, the enemy was at the walls again. So that was it, the last battle had seemed too easy, and they were putting stealth units in the town while they were at it. This was the plan, hit them while they were split, up front and from the inside.

Akira didn’t have his armor on, which would have been useless anyway since his armor was trashed because of the battles. He took off towards the gate and prepared to defend. He ran into Cedar on the way, and told him to fly west and find Princess Luna, they needed reinforcements. 





Luna stood at the map of the command tent. She had been studying how to ride those war-beasts and had got pretty good, as had the samurai in her emmediate command. She had been studying the map in hopes of seeing a possible weak point in Equestrias defenses. She had found very little. The Oxen have been taking coastal cities and villages without mercy, and the legions came in from the land to prevent any escapees and keeping word from reaching Blueblood that Luna now had an ally.

She was pondering strategy when a messenger came in. “Princess, the package has arrived.”

“Good, I want it ready for transport to Ponyvill as soon as possible.” She tells him.

The messenger nods and turns to leave the tent, but only for someone to barge in panting and sweating like a pig in a heatwave. “Princess Luna,” Cedar panted. “It’s ponyvill, its going to be overrun, we need reinforcements.”

Luna turns to the first messenger, “Tell the samurai to mount up, and tell the legion to follow as soon as they can to ponyvill, bring the package with the legion.”

“Yes Princess.”

Luna put on her kabuto (Helmet) and tightened her menpo against her face with the helmet cord. She grabbed her naginata and marched outside of the tent to mount her own war-beast. Within five minutes the samurai were ready to ride. Luna lead a hasty ride westward towards Ponyvill. They would arrive there within an hour.





Akira had cleared out the guerrilla fighters and had gone to the main gate to hold off the enemy units. He swung downward onto an Equestrian soldier, who took the blow on the steel rim of his roundshield, making the battered blade shatter. He didn’t hesitate to drop the now useless handle and draw his katana to duel wield with his wakisashi. These swords weren’t much better off, they had been used near endlessly without sufficient repair, and they too shattered on solid contact with reinforced steel. Akira had to fight by hand.

Thanks to his training he was able to do so with good success, although he wasn’t as good unarmed. So he swiftly took up a fallen yari and began to fight with that. The horde continued to come, he held them off as best he could, but some managed to slip past and get into the town. Akira had to trust the militia he had trained, and he had to focus on the foes ahead of him.

He was close to being overpowered thanks to exhaustion and numbers, when a horn sounded. This made all of them look to the east, and see an army of samurai come over a hill. They appeared to be riding things but details couldn’t be seen at the distance. The horn sounded again and the samurai charged, no doubt spearheaded by Luna. The enemy began to flee, seeing that they were clearly outmatched. Akira used this to his advantage, by killing all of those he could as quickly as he could with the window of opportunity he’d been given.

The horde was set upon by the samurai, who cleaved through the horde with clear ease. Akira turned back into the city to clear out those who had made it past him. He came around a corner and saw several Equestrian soldiers cornering his militia. He quickly slaughtered those who were pinning them down, and told them to sweep the town. They did so.

When the town was cleared Akira and the militia came to the gates to invite Luna and her samurai in. The ruined gates were pulled aside and Luna lead her mounted samurai into the town. She dismounted, to find Akira and the militia bowing. She told them to stand, and told Akira that she needed to speak with him. Akira followed her to a secluded corner of the town where they were to converse. 

“It’s good to see you unharmed Princess.” Akira tells her.

“And I am sorry to see the same can’t be said for you.” Luna says gesturing to his torn clothing. “Where is your armor?”

“Ruined beyond repair sadly.” He says. “I had not the materials necessary for its upkeep or repair, it is useless now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How are the villagers?”

“Those who are alive are getting along well enough. Shaken and afraid, some injured, but otherwise well.”

“Provisions and recourses will be arriving with the first legion, they will arrive here in a few hours.” 

“And a relief force.” Akira thinks aloud. “These ponies will be relieved to see that they won’t need to do more fighting.”

“I will have need of you later, but for right now you may go.”





True to her word, the legion arrived two and a half hours later. The first legion was triple strength, meaning that each century had three hundred men in it and four hundred fifty for the centuries of the first cohort, simply speaking, it was massive. They arrived with provisions and repair materials, they tended the wounded and fed the citizens. Not long after they arrived Akira was summoned to Luna’s tent.

He came outside the town and found the tent near the center of the camp that wasn’t the command tent. He came in and emmediately knelt. Luna knelt in front of him in her usual ladylike fashion, her legs together and her hands in her lap.

“You came quickly.” She comments.

“You called me.” He tells her. “I follow orders as quickly as I can.”

“You don’t need to be like this when we are alone, legally speaking I am your superior but before that I am your friend. I have a gift for you.” Luna tells him. “The senate has agreed that your unwavering loyalty and devotion to this nation deserves a reward, and not just regular pay which we will be giving you. No, this gift is one that should be much more useful to you. It’s in the box at the back of the tent.”

Akira was surprised by this. He slowly got up and approached a thigh high box at the back of the tent. He opened the top, and gaped at what he saw. Inside was a set of tosei gusoku armor, or great armor.



It was made of overlapping metal bands lacquered together in black with a silver crescent in the middle of the chestpiece. The helmet had similar antlers on it like his last one, but between them was a small silver moon emblem. He had no words for such a glorious suit of armor. There was kikko mail on the arms, (Hexagonal plates fixed with mail) and even mailed tabi. This had to be the most expensive set of armor he had ever laid eyes on.

“You honor me more than you know Princess.” He says once he’s found his voice. “This has to have been expensive beyond measure.”

“Not really.” Luna says. “When we told the smiths who it was for, they got the greatest of them to make it for less than usual. That isn’t steel it is made of, it is made of the finest starsilver and moonsilk. That is likely stronger than the most expensive of plate armor used by the Equestrian nobility, it would be near impossible to be hurt in that. And there are two more things to go with it.”

Akira turns to see her kneeling and facing him, in front of her was a wakizashi in its saya (Sheath) and in her hands was a sheathed katana. She bowed her head as she offered the sword up to him, he gingerly and slowly took it from her. He drew the katana and inspected the blade, the temper line was smooth and made it clear that this was well made. But the thing that caught his eye were the engravings. All along the blade, from tsuba to tip, were carved moons, each changing their phase as they moved along the blade starting with a new moon to a full moon in the middle and with a crescent at the tip. A beautiful and masterfully made weapon. The wakizashi had the same.

Akira had no words to express his gratitude. He prostrated himself in front of Luna. “There is nothing I can say to tell you how truly honored and greatful I am.”

“No need.” Luna says lifting his head up, and bringing him in for a kiss. When she pulled away, she saw a blush on his cheeks. “If it weren’t for you, me and my subjects would likely be in chains or worse. This is our way of thanking you.”
> Immortality (Cloppy, but not straight up clop)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night Akira received his new armor, he also received something else, something... intimate. This something is in many ways sacred, ancient, and in it’s very essence good. It is something that many see differently, and Luna has done it several different ways, her favorite being rather perverted. But she had an ulterior motive, which is why she chose the oldest and purest form.

This intimate something is where two become one, physically, mentally and spiritually. This is where Luna’s ulterior motive lay, her immortality lay within her spirit, and she intended to share it. When this act is done, something is always left in the two participants of the other, this is all the more true the purer the act gets. This is why she stuck with the purest form of this act, instead of her... kinkier preferences. And because of the immortality she shared with Akira, he knew of little, save for feeling different the next morning.

He woke the next morning, Luna in his side. Looking down at the lunar goddess slumbering peacefully in his arm, her naked form pressing comfortably against his. He smiled gently, and stroked her mane absentmindedly. She stirred slightly a few minutes later, before her eyes slowly fluttered open. She smiled up at him, the smallest of blushes on her cheeks. 

“Good morning handsome.” She says quietly. “Sleep well?”

“After last night’s excursion I slept like a log.” He tells her. “You?”

“Same.” She says cuddling closer. “But I don’t think I’ll be walking properly for a good while.”

“Are you complaining?” He says sitting up.

“No.” She says pulling him back down. “But I will complain if you try to leave so quickly.”

“I need to take care of business,” He says to her trying again, only to be pulled back.

“If you need your sword polished just so you can stay I won’t hesitate to comply.” She says with a seductive look.

“Didn’t you have enough last night?” He groans.

“Last night was a warmup round,” She says snuggling closer. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you can really do.”

“Not now.” He says. “I need to take care of some business.”

“What business is there to take care of?” She asks. “We don’t move out for another three days. We have time.”

“Time to prepare for the next assault, which I will assume is Canterlot.”

“Not for another three days, eight more legions are headed this way for that, they will arrive tomorrow. That is when we prepare.” Luna tells him. “But until then, forget traditions, pin me down, and fuck me senseless.”

He had enough, she wanted it so badly he’d give it to her. Pulling himself over her, pinning her hands above her, he leaned in and whispered in her ear something that made her shiver. “Be careful what you wish for.”





Luna lay faceup in her messed up bedroll, her chest heaving from the treatment she received only moments before. Her used throat was unfit for any sound beyond a half-conscious moan. She had confronted him about her fetishes, and he was happy to satisfy them. Luna had never felt better, despite how sore she was. She loved the way he did it, and she was happy that he was compatible for immortality, and that it had caught on him so well.

The man in question was currently getting dressed, his clothes hiding his form no matter how much she wished otherwise. He did so quickly, his breathing slow and even unlike her’s, the perfect dom. He didn’t face her as he dressed himself, her otherwise naked form limp on the ground, satisfied.

Akira left the tent, and the exhausted princess, once he donned his new armor and swords. He left for the edge of the encampment and into the town to begin training.

After several minutes Luna managed to get up, she swallowed and washed down what was left from the recent happening. She too donned her clothing and weapons, cleaned up the... mess, she and Akira made. She left the tent herself for the command tent, where her own duties awaited.
> Untrustworthy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna found Akira in the middle of the town, he was organizing the town militia he had put together by giving them hatlike hard leather helmets with wicker frames and some basic leather armor. She remembered him saying that the hatlike helmet was called a jingasa, a helmet of leather or rarely steel that was shaped like the kasa hat of his home, used by the less trained ashigaru (Foot soldiers). They all were armed with those spears he had also explained as yari.

The ashigaru were organized in two new units and to be ready for combat. They weren’t too excited about it but they didn’t complain. Akira was finished organizing them rather quickly and Luna went to the command tent outside the city in the south. She had plans to make.





Blueblood flipped the table over in fury. Not only had his largest army failed to bring down that blasted samurai, they managed to die out entirely, no survivors had returned and no report given. There were no words to express his anger, so he simply threw the table several feet in front of him. The room was barren save for this table, which had the map of Equestrian and Bat Clans territories. It was displeasing to say the least.

Not long after the door opened to reveal a messenger. “Sir, we have news. It was Princess Luna who came in to defy your army near Ponyvill. She and her samurai as well as a triple strength legion.”

“Damn them.” Blueblood curses. “Any good news?”

“I’m afraid not sir.” The messenger says.

Sighing Blueblood orders to the messenger.

“Yes sir.” He says before leaving.

Blueblood had a plan to be rid of that blasted blue Alicorn.

In one hour Blueblood and his phalanx infantry were formed at the gates of Canterlot. In between the two front units was Celestia, chained and gagged while being held by two knights. Blueblood picked up his own halberd and ordered them all to march onward to ponyvill.





“Princess Luna!” A scout cried entering the command tent in a hurry. “Blueblood is outside the town walls, and he is demanding that you speak with him.”

“Is it a surrender?” Luna asks, hopeful.

“Possibly, but I do not believe so.” He says. “He is demanding that you come alone. I advise caution Princess, he can’t be trusted.”

“I know he can’t.” Luna said glumly. “It is likely a trap.”

Luna began to write on a piece of paper, it was orders for what to do should she not return. She took a lot of inspiration from Akira’s homelands government, and twisted it up a little bit so that it would work in such a way that her ponies would be largely in control of their own government, and vise versa at the same time. She had some final orders to give to several of her generals, and some business to conclude with some others. All of these were written down and placed in a sealed envelope. She gave it to her second in command and First Minister for War, telling him that if she should not return from the Equestrians or she should die before she could be recovered, this was to be delivered to the senate in The Deep.

She took her naginata and donned her armor and daisho before leaving for the enemy lines to speak with her enemy. She approached an armored Blueblood who stood in front of a large group of phalanx infantry on standby. She glared at Blueblood from beneath her kabuto and menpo, he had his helmet under his left arm and a halberd in his right hand. He gave a slight bow to Princess Luna in a false show of respect, Luna did the same, not going as low as him.

“You sent for me to come out and speak. What is it you wish to say?” She demands.

“I wish do demand that you surrender yourself and your armies to me and my allies.” He says hotly.

Luna gave a short and humorless chuckle. “You must be Deluded beyond comprehension if you think that is even a possibility.”

“I’m afraid it is,” Blueblood says stepping aside and revealing Celestia chained and forced to kneel. “Because if you don’t I will kill her.”

“One mare is hardly worth the lives of millions.” Luna says. “Stand your armies down, and I will spare them. Do so emmediately and I may just spare you, but that will be up to the senate to decide.”

Blueblood gave a snort. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

From behind enemy lines came an arrow, blunt tipped but fast. Luna barely reacted fast enough to deflect it with her naginata. But that was pointless as several more followed, she blocked some and dodged others, but one caught her and she realized what they were for. The arrows were blunt but enchanted with lightning, the electricity that flooded through her made her cry out in pain before collapsing to her knees in a smoking heap. Blueblood struck the back of her head with the pommel of his sword, leaving her unconscious. The phalanx infantry quickly bound her before dragging her into their ranks. After they turned and marched back to Canterlot.





Akira had watched from the ramparts of the town wall as Luna fell. Every urge in his body said that he should run to her and fight, but she was too far away. Beyond his help. And she had ordered him to stay there. His heart burned in anger, and shame, he had just let his superior fall into enemy hands, something worthy of seppuku. But after a year and a half of being with Luna and her society, his views had changed, his concept of honor was different than when he arrived. No seppuku was out of the question, there was still a chance. But he needed the other legions to be there.

Survive Luna, for the sake of everyone you have lead survive. You have given them the courage to fight, and now you must give them a reason to. Survive, we are coming.
> The Pit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna was jolted awake at the sound of an iron lock being released and rusty hinges swinging open. Sitting up she sees through blurry vision a white form being dragged by two darker ones. The white form was thrown into the cell, which Luna soon identified as her sister. The torturers that had thrown Celestia in locked her cell after they left it, then approached Luna’s. Luna attempted to stand, but found she couldn’t get higher than a crouch due to her hands being locked in shackles with very short chains bolted into the floor. The torturers approached her and locked her hands behind her in a second pair of shackles before releasing the first pair, they clearly knew how dangerous she was.

She could hear numerous whispers from the inmates in the cells around her. Whispers like, “Princess Luna”, “How did she get here”, and “If they have her there is no hope.” Luna was forced to stand and was pushed along by the two jailers into a separate room. Luna glanced at her sister, who met her gaze with her own, Luna’s gaze was cold, Celestia’s hurt. Luna was shoved into the new room, where she found several clever instruments of torture. She saw a bloody body on one of the racks, her eyes widened in horror and hatred when she realized that it was a batpony that was skinned alive and each of his muscles cut from their place one at a time.

Luna knew that she would face unaccounted horrors in this place, but for the good of the ponies she lead, she would endure them. She saw numerous whips, hammers, nails, thumbscrews, an Iron Maiden, and several vices likely to be used to crush various limbs or otherwise. She also noticed a wheel suspended over a board of protruding nails, likely the victim would be bound to the wheel and dragged along the protruding spikes, causing severe and painful harm to the victim. She also noticed a pile of bags filled with what was likely salt. There were also branding irons, used for torture and for marking the special prisoners.

Luna was brought over to this first, she was chained tightly to a wall with her back facing out. One of her captors tore open her shirt to expose her bare back, while the other stoked the fire. Luna was given no gag, and she didn’t have any time to brace herself before the hot iron was pressed into her back. Despite having gone through enormous amounts of pain before, Luna could not hold back a scream as she thrashed in her restraints, her body instinctively trying to get away from the thing that was hurting her.

“Do you know why you were branded.” Came an all too familiar voice once her screams died down. “Because you have betrayed the ponies of this great nation. You have lowered yourself to the company of those bat-rats, and for what? They have their place, and now so do you.”

“Do your worst Blueblood.” Luna hisses, venom enough to kill flowing from her tongue like a river from the mountain. “The only thing you will achieve is your own death. I have endured worse than this, you cannot break me.”

“Even if we torture your sister?” He says with a false calm, hiding glee behind it. 

Luna throws her head back and laughs. “She is dead to me. She let my ponies suffer at the hands of her own and reclined in comfort as she did so, you’d be doing me the favor of delivering justice for me. I’d thank you for your assistance before removing your pathetic head from your miserable shoulders.”

BLueblood chuckles, right before bringing a heavy whip down on Luna’s new brand, drawing a scream as the burned flesh was struck. After a moment Luna’s screams die down, and her breathing is heavy. However she quickly remedies this and her breathing returns to an even and smooth rate.

“Impressive,” Blueblood comments. “If only such discipline had found it’s way to the right side.”

“I think you missed a spot, a little bit lower to the left.” Luna tells him, resulting in another crack of the whip. After a brief scream Luna says again. “Just a little lower.”

So he cracks the whip again, the whip landing on her butt cheek and cutting through the fabric of her pants and leaving a cut along her flesh. Despite this Luna begins to laugh after a scream. Blueblood is astounded.

“Might I ask what is so funny.”

“Not only are you a pathetic torturer, but you were just scratching my butt too.” Luna says failing to contain her laughter, the result is another lash, this time on the brand again. After a while they began to rub salt into her injuries, making them burn in agony. Luna screams every time she was struck with the whip or salt was forced into her injuries, but she never gave them anything.

After a while, Luna didn’t feel the whip, but a hammer. A hammer that met her legs arms and back, cracking bones with each stroke. Before long Luna couldn’t hold herself up, and was instead limp in her chains. After that her captors gripped her shattered arms cruelly and dragged her painfully back to her cell, where she was tossed to the floor. She couldn’t fight her captors in the state she was in, she could do nothing other than lay there and wait for the next day to come.





The next day she was brought to the torture chamber again, where once again her bones were shattered and her flesh split. They continuously demanded that she write a letter ordering her armies to surrender, and always the answer was no. Even when they brought Celestia in and gave her the same attentions given to her, no matter what they did, Luna refused. She only had to last two more days.





Back in Ponyvill, Akira and the generals were preparing for an assault on Canterlot. They knew the defenses were bolstered by griffins and Minotaur so it would be a challenge to get through, even with eight legions. Akira and the generals were discussing their next move when a messenger came in.

“I have news. Word of Princess Luna’s capture spread faster than a wildfire. All active legions have been working furiously to destroy Equestrian control and the Oxen have been taking away a lot of stress. They’ve all begun moving in towards Canterlot.”

“How many?” Akira asks.

“Twenty three legions, not including those who were already on their way.”
> Rallied Hate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akira was organizing a night patrol out of a combination of legionaries and samurai. He himself would be on the first scouting trip, and he was about to lead his group out when he heard the horn of the legions from outside the walls. He walked up to the wall and climbed to the top of the earth mound walls to see numbers beyond imagination, and not all of them were legionaries. There were also being with horns, roundshields and varying kinds of armor but all of it looking reliable from that distance. Most carried spears but not all, but he couldn’t discern much from that distance. The legions were marching in, and Akira ordered the gates open.

The sound of feet marching in perfect unison echoed through the air, and the generals came in first. There were thirty one of them total, plus one of those horned beasts. He saw clearly that he wore a shirt of mail reaching down to his knees with a vest of scales over it. On his head was a cap of iron with eye and nose guards with a skirt of mail that came down around his head to protect his neck, not unlike Akira’s own kabuto. The creature carried a spear, roundshield, and straight double edged sword apparently meant for chopping. The enourmous horns on his head would have frightened Akira if he hadn’t faced people with better armor and bigger horns.

Akira lead the thirty two ponies and ox to the command tent. Where the general of the first legion waited. When so many of them came in it was rather crowded around the map of Canterlot and Ponyvill. The generals were quickly introduced to Jarl Ironbeard of the ox clans. How he and most of his kin had joined the legions in their quest to liberate ther princess and finally conquer Equestria. There were exactly five hundred thousand of them, and all of them hungry for blood.

Looking over the map and estimating the amount of ponies, griffins and Minotaur that were bolstering Canterlot. As well as coming up with a strategy that will cost them the least casualties. The legions were soon instructed to begin construction on catapults and small ballistae. The ballistae could be moved behind the legionaries so that they could take out Minotaur more easily and from a distance. They also had a way of loading several in at one time so that it would spread and take out any enemies in the air, namely the griffins. In case the griffins got close the samurai units would be there to take care of them.

Akira himself would be front and center, riding in on a warbeast with several other samurai. He was surprised to see such animals here, because well they were horses pretty much so he didn’t expect any for riding. And they were equally surprised with his skill in riding, he had to get used to the beast and oil out some rust but he was back in his old ways before long, able to hit a bullseye from fifty yards away while on horseback, or beastback he should say.

The legions were restless, ready to go into Canterlot and slaughter everyone they came across (Not the mares and children but you get it). They were drilling themselves more than they usually would, even the mares rescued from the enemy were helping out with a lot of things, mostly medical needs for the citizens and injured of the Ponyvillians but also helped with the legions’ cooks and other such jobs to help things move more smoothly. The next day they were to attack Canterlot, and kill or capture any and all enemy soldiers they found. Tomorrow, would be a bloody day.





Blueblood marched confidently through the halls, his advisor close behind with a more worried expression on his face.

“Sire are you sure we can hold this castle against the Bat Clans?”

“Don’t bother the king with such impudent questions,” One noble told him. “It would take tens of thousands to take this castle.”

“Hundreds of thousands.” Blueblood said calmly.

“And my lord there is no such force.” The noble told him just as they walked onto the outer ramparts, to see the positively vast army outside. They heard the horn sound loudly across the distance, and for once in his life, he felt a twinge of fear.
> (Bonus chapter) Weapons and armor in use
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Samurai


As the prominent feature in this story, I think it is best to explain the weapons of the samurai used in and out of the battlefield as well as the armors they used. Lets start with the armor.

The armor was designed to be light and flexible while providing ample protection for the wearer. The more effective at protection they got, the heavier and less flexible they were. So the daimyō or generals of samurai armies would have heavier and less flexible armor for better protection, and they often wouldn't be doing any actual fighting so flexibility wasn't as big of a necessity as it was for the ashigaru or samurai soldiers. The earlier samurai made their armor out of leather with some bone fragments sewn into it to give it extra strength, so yes bone armor isn't entirely fantasy, they also had scaled armor at the time. When the europeans showed up and gave them gunpowder scales became pointless because they didn't guard from bullets and they took longer to make than plate, when the white-man showed up some samurai even had a solid plate on their chest instead of bands lacquered or welded together.

Samurai armor components.

1. Cuirass - dō (胴（仏胴）)
2. Fauld - kusazuri (草摺)
3. Cuisse - haidate (佩楯)
4. Poleyn - tateage (立挙)
5. Greaves - suneate (臑当（篠臑当）)
6. Sabaton - kōgake (甲懸)
7. Spaulders - sode (袖（当世袖）)
8. Vambrace - kote (籠手（篠籠手）)
9. Gauntlets - tekkō (手甲（摘手甲）)
10. Helm - kabuto (兜（日根野形頭形兜）)
11. Badge (helmet) - kasa-jirushi (笠印)
12. Forehead plate - mabisashi (眉庇)
13. Lame - fukikaeshi (吹返)
14. Neck guard - shikoro (しころ（日根野しころ）)
15. Crest (here: water buffalo horns) - wakidate (立物（水牛の脇立）)
16. Crest (here: sun disk) - maedate (立物（日輪の前立）)
17. Faceplate - menpō or mempō (面頬（目の下頬）)
18. Badge (shoulder) - sode-jirushi (垂)
19. Bevor - yodare-kake (襟廻)

Now for the weapons.

Primary.

Yari/naginata: both of these are examples of japanese spears used during the samurai period. The naginata was used earlier and there were two different variations, for male and female use. The females used naginata with slender blades to make up in swiftness what they lacked in upper body strength whereas the men, being more fit in the upper body, used heavier naginata. when the yari came around it replaced naginata because the naginata was primarily used by women and was even nicknamed "The woman spear". some examples of yari had one or two protruding blades at an angle in addition to the primary stabbing blade, however it could also be used for slashing if necessary.

Nagamaki/nodachi(or odachi, it doesn't matter): okay, first off lets settle the debate about the difference between the odachi and nodachi. there is no difference, one just specifies where it is used, nodachi means "great field sword", odachi means "Great sword". Okay, the nodachi was the Japanese equivalent of the European longsword or in some cases the claymore (Which could stand taller than the wielder). the nodachi was a sword that was so long that it couldn't be sheathed at the hip, but could be sheathed on the back for the shorter examples, however there was no quick way to draw it so the samurai would often hold the nodachi resting over their shoulder during the march to be ready for immediate combat. The nagamaki was in a sense similar, it had a blade a bit longer than the katana and a handle that was as long as the blade. This weapon was designed for broad slashing motions, specifically to be used against horses by cutting their legs out from under them. The hands would remain in a fixed position on the handle while wielding this though the purpose is unknown to me and data is rather hard to come by.

Kanabo/Ōtsuchi: the Japanese mace and warhammer. The kanabo was as seen in one of the previous chapters a large two handed war club that was studded with encased in or entirely made of iron. It required an enourmous amount of strength to wield properly and recovering from a miss wasn't easy, often leaving the wielder exposed to a violent response from his opponent. The otsuchi was much the same, only it was a heavy hammer used in a similar way. Both were used to counter plate armor by sending force through the plates and to the opponent, blunt force weapons became more popular in the later ages because of how effective they were against plate armor, and the effects were even more unpleasant for those who didn't have such armor, leaving far worse injuries. The main difference between these two is that the otsuchi was mainly used as a battering ram that doubled as a weapon.

Secondary and tertiary.

Katana/tachi: these were two similar weapons from different periods. The katana came after the tachi, both have similar proportions however the main difference between the two was that the tachi had a curved handle like the nodachi and nagamaki. The katana had a straight handle and a less pronounced curve. The tachi was worn with the blade facing the ground whereas the katana was worn with the blade facing the sky, this is another major difference between these two.

Wakizashi/kodachi: This is the tertiary sword used by the samurai, sometimes alongside the katana and tachi respectively. The wakizashi was pretty much a short version of the katana and the kodachi is the shorter version of the tachi. both were worn with their respective partners by the samurai class in their respective periods.

tanto/dagger: there were several forms of daggers in the Japanese culture, before and after the samurai culture. the tanto is the most famous, having the image of a tiny katana, a short curved blade that was used as the last line of armed defense for the samurai. They would use other daggers to but I won't list them all because of the length of the list.


Vikings


The vikings, or more accurately norsemen, were a diverse and often are misinterpreted. The common idea is a guy wearing next to nothing with a big axe and charging into battle with an unsatiable thirst for blood, this is utterly false. The norse term "viking" means someone who is going on an expedition at sea, be it raiding, trade, exploration, war, or even peaceful settlement. Yes viking raids were violent but it was a violent age, and since they attacked places of religious value, namely monasteries, we have given them a lot of hate because of this. But what many fail to understand is that this is looking at them from a stubborn point of view, we are looking at them as the victims, while I try to have an overall view. The vikings who raided, and that was the vast minority of them, did that because that was how they fed their families, that was where they got the resources for trade among other things. Also, many people believe that the vikings used crude weapons and barely useful armor if any, this is simply not true. The weapons they used were VERY well made, using pattern welding among other techniques to make them. Most vikings used a spear with a roundshiled, unless they used a bow and even then they had a sword or axe and with the possibility of a shield on their back. many say that if a viking was well off he had a saxe, no if he was well off, he had a sword, and viking swords were very good. What surprises a lot of people is that some viking weapons were very intricate, they would have knotwork designs on the blades of their swords or axes for decoration but they would still be battle ready. The vikings weren't the barbarians that we make them out to be, yes many of their practices were barbaric, but only in our eyes, it would be the norm for them.

The vikings didn't have a set arsenal, it was rather simple, they had their swords, spears, axes, and shield. They didn't all have the same armor although most had mail. There is the possibility of there being cloth and leather armor but no archaeological evidence found as leather and cloth do decompose. they also had very strong helmets, although their details also varied, they could have a full faceplate, eye and nose guard only or just a nose guard, depends on the helmet, some also had cheekplates and they were often skirted with mail to protect the neck. There isn't exactly a set list like the samurai because I am not as well versed but I do know more than many. 


Legionaries


The legionaries are based off of the roman soldiers after the Marian Reforms. Meaning a standing professional army. First lets talk about the armor. There were three kinds, Segmentata, Hamata and Squamata.

Lorica Segmentata: Now, it wasn't actually called segmentata by the Romans but we don't actually know what they called it, one possibility is Laminata but segmentata is the most known name. It was the plate armor used by the Romans during the early empire and late republic around the time where Ante Criste or BC turns into Anno Domini AD meaning "the year of our lord". (Quick cleanup, AD does not mean after death it means anno domini or the year of our lord so there is no thirty year calendar gap, AD begins the moment Christ is born according to the old texts.)

Lorica Hamata: This was probably the most common armor used by legionaries, it was the mail armor used by the legionaries and it was actually rather effective. It was a form of T-shirt of mail used by roman legionaries.

Lorica Squamata: This was the scaled armor used by the Romans. It was simple and effective, used by the higher ranks who could afford it, used especially during the time that Segmentata wasn't yet or no longer was in use.

Scutum: The scutum was the shield used by the legionaries, it was a large rectangular shield that protected almost the entire body, and allowed the legionary to get close enough to use the gladius, which is why the romans used that shorter sword.

Gladius: The gladius was the main weapon used by legionaries, it was designed for stabbing but was also extremely effective at cutting. 

Roman Clothing: Here are a few videos from a professional on roman clothing, armor weapons and tactics.














Knights


The armor used by the Equestrian knights is going to be exceptionally varied although not so much as that of the Ox tribes, or Vikings. The armor of the European knights was amongst the best in the ancient world, if not the absolute most effective. I don’t have a lot of time to type this up, so here is a video of the top ten most effective armors in history most of which are in this fic. The mail, coat of plates, gambeson (padding), brigandine and full plate are the specific ones used by the knights in this fic.


> The Seige pt1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day was upon them, the time had come. Akira and the generals were preparing for battle, as were all of the legions present. The first through twenty third legions were preparing for battle, weapons were being sharpened, shields decorated, armor repaired and polished and in the later hours, goodbyes were being said. The samurai were donning their armor and grabbing their weapons, the ashigaru were picking up their yari, and all were prepared to march by midday.





Gladius of the fifth legion was leaving his tent, still fastening the last buckle on his armor, when a hand on his shoulder turned him around and pulled him into a tight hug. He hesitated for a moment before hugging Tulip back, her arms were wrapped tightly around his midsection, his came gently around her shoulders. Over the past three quarters of a year those two had grown very close, she still had nightmares from her imprisonment but he had provided her with an escape from that. She had accompanied the legion that rescued her, as had many of the mares who were with her down there. They had taken some of the in camp jobs from the stallions to allow them to focus more on fighting, they took up jobs that mostly involved cooking and other kitchen duties.

As a result many of them became intimately involved with some of the legionaries. Tulip was one such mare, having grown closer to Gladius over the time that they shared a tent, and in the later months a sleeping bag. She hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go with tears in her eyes. His expression was sad but he did not allow tears to fall, for her sake.

“Come back, please.” She says through her tears.

He couldn’t answer her, he could only pull her closer. After a few minutes he had to let go of her and marched over to his place in his century. He knew that it wasn’t likely for him to survive the day, it wasn’t likely that he would ever see Tulip again.





Akira was mounted upon one of the warbeasts, in his left hand was his yumi with his quiver on his right hip. He would lead the cavalry charge into the city, the strategy was a simple one. The first to third legions would assault the walls head on, the first cohort of the first legion would move to the main gates covering a handheld ram via testudo, once the gates were down they would come in and push apart the enemy lines and allow the cavalry to charge in and take the innermost city and penetrate the castle to let the legions in. 

The remaining legions would take the city from above and below, using the cave systems in the mountains to get above the city and coming up under it, flooding in behind enemy lines. The Oxen would come up with the legions but they would come to help the samurai taking the castle, their heavier weapons would be better for getting past the heavier armor of the knights. Rainbow Dash and Swift Arrow were accompanying Akira into the castle, their botkan tipped arrows for piercing armor. Atop their own warbeasts they were ready for the charge.

It was time, the horn of the legions was sounded, and the march was ordered and the plan was set into motion.





Luna sat in her cell, her injuries having been recently healed so that the torture could continue. But before it could they heard the horn for the third time in three days, looking out of the window of her cell she saw that battle lines were being formed on the outer walls. The battle for Canterlot was about to begin.

Luna’s jailor hadn’t yet chained her down because the horn had interrupted his actions and Blueblood had immediately left for the battle. Luna seized this opportunity, kicking the lone jailers knee with a side kick making it snap. The cracking of bones could be heard throughout the cell block, the jailor screamed but only temporarily because Luna rechambered her kick and roundhoused his jaw, the cracking of bones once again reverberated through the dungeon and the screaming was silenced. Shocked silence filled the dungeon, everyone there watched Luna take the keys from the jailer and unlocks the manacles from her wrists.

Luna first took the jailers shirt as her own had been rendered useless and turned to almost nothing over the past three days so her captors and fellow captives had been staring at her boobs for most of the past day. She was thankful for her newfound dignity, but she didn’t waste time, the minute she put the shirt on she took the keys and began unlocking cells, freeing the batpony captives. Only those of them who were healthy enough to move could get out of the cells, then four of the healthy ones were left behind to take care of them while the rest of them were to come with Luna to help with fighting the rest of the knights in the castle.

The only pony that was left in a cell was Celestia. Partially because nobody there trusted her, partially because if she were not locked behind iron the batponies would try to kill her. Celestia pressed against the bars when Luna and the thestrals were about to leave.

“Luna, I can help. Let me out, I can help you fight.” Celestia says almost desperately.

Luna replies with. “And what makes you think that anyone here would trust you to do that?”

“I know that you don’t trust me, but I can’t just sit down while my sister and a group of half starved and unarmed batponies. Especially agains well armed, well fed and well trained soldiers.”

“I’m sorry, but you didn’t seem to have a problem sitting down when these ponies were being persecuted. You can do it again.”

“Please Luna, I know that was wrong, please let me make it right.”

“It will take a lot more than one action to make it right.” Luna says to her. “But you had mercy on me when I made a major mistake, I owe you for that.”
> The Seige pt2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Luna's POV


Luna the group of batponies and a very threatened Celestia, made their way to the castle armory. It wasn't very difficult nor dangerous as most of the soldiers, if they could even be called that, were outside the main keep in the streets and on the walls, about to face the most deadly of enemies they could. That being hordes of mounted samurai and oxen, plus twenty three legions, all of which wanted to kill them dead.

Once inside Luna instructed each batpony to grab a gambeson coat (Padded armor made of wool compacted very tightly between two layers of cloth, could be done multiple times and used as a base for chainmail), spear and roundshield. Celestia's own armor was down there, collecting dust after almost four centuries of not being used, although it was enchanted against rust and other forms of damage made by time. It was a golden bronze color, the most advanced of plate armors available, the helmet had a pointed visor and was domed to encourage blows to glance off. The helmet followed the chin so it had to close around the wearer's head instead of over it. The cuirass curved in towards the hips before expanding outward to let the hips carry a good portion of the weight. The legs were protected by cylindrical plates that would wrap around the thighs and calves plus knee plates to protect the crucial joint with skirting plates protruding from the bottom of the cuirass not unlike that of the tosei-gusoku used by the samurai. The arms were similarly protected, with scilinders of polished, painted and fitted steel that would wrap around the upper arm and forearm to protect it from blows, plus elbow guards and spauldrons that came halfway down the upper arm with layered plates that collapsed in on one another like the shoulder plates of the lorica segmentata used by the legionaries, only a little bit more compact and less stiff. There was also a heavy broadsword with it and a poleaxe as her primary weapon. Celestia began to don her armor, in preparation for the fight to come.

Luna found her tosei-gusoku there as well, the black and silver armor resting oddly on a table off to the side, alongside her naginata and daisho. Many eyes were on Luna as she strapped on the shin guards, their flexibility surprising everyone present, then she strapped on the thigh guards and pulled up the armored sleeves before putting on the cuirass and shoulder plates. finally she donned the kabuto and menpo, the kabuto chin cords tightened the menpo and held the horrifying mask in place. After that she tucked her daisho into her obi and secured them before grabbing her naginata.

Celestia had teleported her armor on, the magic restraining cuffs having been removed by Luna using a handy sledgehammer that the tormenters were fond of using, and had also helped equip the many batponies there. She and everyone else there stood looking at her curiously when she picked up the armor and unfamiliar weapons that came with it.  But Luna snapped them out of their daze by opening the door out of the armory and into the castle hallway, then motioning for them to follower her through.

The group of untrained but ready fighters followed the two princesses through the hallway to the back of the castle, Luna ordered the batponies to start moving those two weak or sick or injured to do so themselves out the back servants entrance, where shipments of resources came in. They unloaded one of the carts of the food crates and loaded the few who couldn't move without help in there, then they would send the injured out and around the city and to the camped legions outside, Luna and Celestia would stay there to join the fight.






Akira's POV


The horn sounded, the attack had begun. The red testudo of legionaries advanced on the gates, bringing with them the handheld ram of the oxen. Arrows flew from the enemy battlements, rocks fell on them from above, noting penetrated the roof of shields. The tramping sound of marching feet sounded from the entire legion that marched forward in the impenetrable formation, the arrows of the enemy doing nothing against the legionaries' massive shields. once they reached the gate the innermost legionaries running down the middle of the testudo turned to face each other and kept their shields up to provide a roof for the now charging oxen with their impossibly heavy ram. The first impact let out the sound of cracking wood as the immense force of momentum, strength and weight carried the ram unflinching into the gate of Canterlot. It only took a couple of swings for the gate to slam open.

The massive oxen charged in, wielding their large swords and shields up front to ram into the line of soldiers behind the gate. The first thing that the enemy saw coming in were great big horned beasts wielding swords and axes that cut through the enemy line with ease, this instantly terrifying and worrying sight disheartened the enemy soldiers, up until the minotaur showed up. The minotaur didn't wear much armor because of how large they were, it would be too costly, but they each wielded large weapons, usually two handed swords and axes, sometimes warhammers. They proved a match for the fierce horned warriors, until the legionaries began to throw their pila. The throwing spears embedding themselves in the unprotected flesh of the minotaur, who quickly were subdued. The legions pushed the enemy apart to allow the central charge access to the city, that was Akira's que. 

Thrusting his yumi bow forward he cried out, swiftly followed by similar war cries from the rest of his samurai brethren. The charge came, the bearlike mounts striking terror into the hearts of the enemy, who was unprepared to face such things. Akira and his Samurai alongside the two rangers were faced with a backup line for the enemy, they were headed to help their comrades against the legion, but were instead trampled and slaughtered by the samurai charge. Akira drew back and fired his bow into the horde of enemy spearmen with impressive accuracy, as though he had done this before. The rangers did fairly well, however they weren't accustomed to riding anything, let alone mounted shooting, for the first time in both their careers, they were outclassed in the archery spectrum. The rest of the samurai used their katana, kanabo and naginata, some had yari while the archers stayed behind with the legions to help against the bigger enemies such as the minotaur and the griffins.

It was also at this time that the griffins got involved, diving in on the legions trying to take them out from above, only to meet the roof of the testudo that rapidly formed. The griffins struggled to stop in the air, often colliding with one of their own and being knocked from the sky. The result was being stabbed by a gladius or pilum that had not yet been launched. Those remaining in the sky got a cloud of arrows that flew through their ranks, taking out griffins that weren't prepared for it. Those lucky few who weren't hit by arrows were quickly disheartened when they saw how swiftly their numbers had been reduced.

The samurai archers were under fire themselves however, arrows being launched into their ranks and striking a few of them down. However the legionaries got atop the walls before this could continue for long and destroyed the enemy archers. Now mostly free to advance the other legions received the signal to march.

Akira and his samurai were almost to the main keep itself when they reached their next hurtle. A group of enemy spearmen had assembled there and were braced for their charge. This was bad, Akira and the two rangers began firing arrows into the center of their ranks and opening a small hole in the line, giving them the opportunity to get inside. Akira had used up the last of his arrows in the volley and discarded his yumi to be retrieved later. One of his samurai brethren tossed him a yari for him to use before drawing his katana. Akira's warbeast was stabbed in the initial impact, unfazed Akira rolled away from his fallen mount to blunt the impact and to immediately rise to his feet for battle.

With an instant thrust from his one knee position ended the first equestrian in his way. The stab was to the throat and the soldier could be heard choking on his own blood as he fell to the ground limp. Akira turned and thrust again into the armpit of a second before cutting across the stomach of a third. He pivoted again, facing forward once more, and tried to stab again, only for it to break on the breastplate of a knight. Casting aside the useless shaft he ducked the swing from the knight's longsword before drawing his katana and cutting across his throat. His neck wasn't protected by plate but by mail, although clearly one of those better off he wasn't on the top of the food chain, surprisingly enough, the katana cut clean through the stallion's neck and mail, the sheared rings of the flexible armor flying off alongside the stallion's head.

Many of the enemy soldiers that had stood back to watch the knight slay the dreaded samurai backed away again in fear and astonishment as the knights head rolled around on the floor. Akira wasted no time whatsoever, sprinting forward and cutting into each of the enemy soldiers, with a swiftness he was not capable of before, moving as almost a blur of movement. before long the enemy was slain, along with many of the samurai warbeasts. 

Now realizing what had happened Akira gazed down at his katana, the blood that smeared the blade seemed to be drying up, no, the blade was absorbing it. Akira very suddenly felt renewed strength fill his bones, strength that was unfamiliar to him. Still he flicked the blade downward as though to fling the blood from it, which was the actual way of doing so. Then he and the rest of the samurai came into the castle, and headed straing for the throne room.






Luna's POV


Luna and Celestia came into the throne room where the generals of the three armies were, watching and assessing the battle before them. They immediately turned to see the two princesses in their armor advancing, the personal guard of each came foreward to oppose the two. Luna took care of the griffin's guard and half of Blueblood's, while Celestia fought the minotaur and the other half of Blueblood's guard.

Luna's naginata was a blur of graceful light as it cut through the moderately armored and armed griffins. Limbs flew from bodies and screams could be heard from evey last one as they lost a leg, arm, wing or were simply cut or stabbed very badly, those who lost their heads didn't have the opportunity to scream. With spinning motions that focused on momentum were what Luna's strikes consisted of, often spinning on her back or even her head to swing low at the well armored ones, often removing both feet if not entire legs with her attacks. Then flipping over another strike she would bring her weapon down on the shoulder of another before rolling over the back of another to stab him beneath the chin of his helm. This motion was unceasing and deadly, Celestia's wasn't quite the same.

Celestia swung her poleaxe without effort, cleaving into one minotaur then pulling out and stabbing another. Then bringing the blunt end down on another's head then cutting into another. It wasn't as constantly fluid but it wasn't forced or without grace. Her poleaxe just wasn't as light as the naginata was, but no less deadly. Her weapon made quick work of the minotaur, so she speedily moved on to Blueblood's guard. Fairly soon only the generals were left standing.

Blueblood lowered the visor on his helm and picked up his own poleaxe to deal with Luna while the other two left to deal with Celestia. Celestia was fast and strong but she had met her match, now facing two skilled and experienced opponents at once she couldn't help LUna with her battle. After exchanging several blows with her own enemy Celestia found herself pinned to the wall, hearing a yelp she turned to see that Blueblood had shoulde-slammed Luna andhad knocked her to the floor. Blueblood had lost his helmet in the fight exposing his head, as had Luna, her mane tied back in a ponytail (Hah, puns) now flowed freely off the back of her head. She had lost her grip on her naginata which lay several feet away, and was now looking up as Blueblood raised his poleaxe to strike down upon the helpless princess.

"NO!" Celestia cried, just as the blow came down.
> Siege pt3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The blow was knocked off course. A blur of motion came forward from the open doorway, then a furless hand struck the side of the axe blade with its palm. The blade bit into the ground, carving into the stone beneath it. Standing there, his arm outstretched from striking the weapon, was Akira. He held his sheathed katana in his left hand so that he could draw it with his right. Throwing his left arm forward his katana sailed smoothly from its sheath to strike Blueblood square between the eyes and sending him stumbling backwards and losing his grip on his polearm. The katana bounced off of his forehead and spun upward into the air. Akira leapt impossibly high to catch it before bringing his katana down on Blueblood's shoulder.

Blueblood stumbled away to regain his balance. He looked at the new threat, with his katana pointed at the ground at an angle from his body, his armor a frightful sight if ever there was one. Looking at the shoulder that was struck he saw that a massive dent was made in his armor for no damage to his enemy's sword, reaching up he ripped the useless spauldron off. Reaching across he drew his sword, then he came forward with a swift stroke to Akira's head.

The blow was ducked and Akira brought his katana up to strike at the armpit, the weakest point in any set of armor. This was deflected and replied to with a thrust to the neck. Twisting out of the way he stabbed upward into the very same armpit he aimed for previously. And thus began a duel for the ages.

Celestia watched this from her pinned position on the wall. She was jerked back to reality when she felt herself be released. Looking back at her attackers she saw a horde of ponies wearing armor very similar to Luna's attacking the two generals. One massive beast of a stallion with visible red fur and a straw colored mane wearing heavy looking samurai armor with no helmet and a full face mask with a hideous monstrosity of a face carved upon it, wielding a huge two handed club studded with what appeared to be iron, laid into the Minotaur. His club came low at the minotaur's legs and knocked him over, he immediately followed up by bringing the club down on his head. The minotaur managed to roll away before the blow landed, when it struck the ground all could feel the foundation of the building shake under the impact.

The stallion using the club used unimaginable strength and was clearly a dangerous enemy. The club came after the minotaur with impressive speed for something obviously very heavy, the stallion used the clubs momentum to keep the strikes going, and managed to reverse the momentum and hit the minotaur from a direction that he didn't expect. After a short while of dueling the club wielding samurai stood victorious over a vanquished and injured minotaur general.

Looking the other way Celestia could see that a samurai with a naginata like Luna's had engaged the griffin general, cutting slashing and stabbing faster than the griffin could react. The griffin had long since lost his sword and hadn't the time to draw his dagger, nor would it be any good. The thing about generals is that they tended to have less skill than the actual fighting soldiers, as they stayed back from the front line. Blueblood was not one of those cases.

Looking back at the enemy king Celestia saw that Luna had rejoined the fight.






Legions' POV


The legions were winning, easily. The enemy was surrounded on all sides and unable to break through the line. Many of them had surrendered. Those that had were being brought back to the camp outside the city in caravans of soldiers that had succeeded in securing the city. When they made it back to the camp outside and bigger than Ponyvill, they were placed in makeshift holding cells made from wood. The mares who were sent to bring them food showed great hatred for them, and even recognized a few, whom they slapped if they could.

In the camp the mares were going about helping with repairs to the town itself and attending to wounded soldiers. Among these wounded was Scutum. He was on a large cot in a medical tent, overseen by Soft Breeze. Her loyalty to the legionary had grown since they met. Many of her old friends from Ponyvill were surprised and happy to see her, happy because she was back, surprised to see that she was close to a batpony. They asked her about him often, mostly the question "How big is it?" and "How long does he last?" but others that were a little less personal.

Right now she was removing the bandages on Scutum's leg and treating the injury with herbs. He was calm about it and made it easy for her to help him. She was rebinding the wound pretty soon, and her hand came to his chest.

"How are you?" She asks with concern.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me." He says back brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I've been hurt worse."

"I know, but it only takes one injury to get you killed."

"On the battlefield yes, but my comrades got me off the field before anything worse could happen and you helped do the rest. I'll be fine Breeze, stop worrying."

"Stop saying that." She says to him. "I care about you Scu, I'll always worry."

"You shouldn't, I'll be fine." He insists. "You should probably go check on others, they need more attention than I d..."

He was interrupted by a pair of lips pressing to his, shutting him up thoroughly. He was stunned for a moment before recovering and pulling her in to deepen the kiss. The kiss was held for quite a long while, until the need to breathe drove them apart. Both of them were out of breath when they pulled apart, panting with burning lungs.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why did you do that?" He asks her.

She giggled, "Why do you think? You wouldn't shut up, and I've wanted to do that for a while now."





Celestia had drawn her sword after recovering from being slammed against the wall. She approached the horde of samurai warriors, none of which were happy to see her, and joined them in observing the battle between the two samurai leaders and Blueblood. Luna had retrieved her naginata and was now using it to assist Akira in fighting the enemy leader.

Blueblood was hard pressed to defend himself from the onslaught the two seasoned warriors gave him. Luna stabs Akira chops, Luna slashes Akira thrusts, Luna strikes with the butt end Akira cuts upward. Blueblood had little to no time to defend himself, much less to attack. It still took a long while for him to go down. It happened when his guard was broken and he was struck on the temple by the pommel of Akira's katana. He fell to the ground.

"Trial by combat." He says after a moment.

"That's what this was." Luna responded her naginata blade against his chin.

"This was two on one, not trial by combat. You know this, you were a knight before."

Luna looks at Akira, then back to Blueblood. "With who?"

"You."
> I'm sorry!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, this is actually a note to all of you who have been waiting patiently for the next chapter. I'm sorry that I haven't posted one yet. I will as soon as I am able, but I don't know how long that will be. I am doing everything I can to get back to you, and I won't keep you waiting forever. I'm sorry for disappointing you.