Nightmare Raven Von Shadowmirk the Dark

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It was an ordinary day in Equestria. The giant, nuclear, death ball that orbited the planet sat high in the sky, creating huge amounts of energy through the fusion of hydrogen atoms in its core and radiating it down on the unsuspecting ponies below in the form of heat and light. Said ponies frolicked happily through their towns, skin-cancer inducing radiation raining down on them from above, blissfully unaware of how insignificant they truly are, as they continued their meaningless pony lives.

One such pony (whose life is even less meaningful than the rest) sat on her throne in Canterlot's palace, idly flicking at her magical, swaying hair with one hoof in boredom. In front of her, a unicorn wearing a gray suit top, but not pants because ponies don't believe in pants, was busy explaining the country's current financial troubles. Or he was trying to, anyway. Princess Celestia wasn't paying attention in the slightest and she had given up on even acting like she was over a half hour ago.

As you can imagine, dealing with ponies everyday is a real chore. They are always coming in and complaining to her as though she cared about their problems. It was always 'economic depression this' or 'political corruption that', they never asked how she was doing. She missed the good old days when she was able to rule over her lands with an iron hoof and she was feared by all. Back then life was simpler. Sadly, the times had changed, and the ponies had come up with stupid concepts like 'civil rights'. What a joke...

Celestia focused her attention back to the unicorn before her, finding that he was still talking about how high their debt to the combined Griffin Kingdoms had gotten even though she toned him out a long time ago. And he just kept talking... Was there no end to this madness?

As if in answer to Celestia's prayers for a distraction, her sister, Luna, pushed open a side door to the huge throne room, trotting inside in some strange, three-legged gait that was brought upon by the fact that she was using one hoof to clutch a hot pocket which she was consuming with a beast-like vigor. Why she didn't just use her magic is anyone's guess at this point.

Instantly forgetting the unicorn that was lecturing her, Celestia called out to her kin, "Hey there sister, aren't you normally asleep by now?" Being the 'princess of the night' meant that Luna generally stayed up all night and slept through the day, so seeing her awake in the early afternoon was a rare sight.

"We hath recently consumed a large amount of mountain dew," she shouted back, still not entirely used to the modern pony dialect and clearly having difficulty controlling the tone of her voice in her mountain-dew-filled state.

Celestia shook her head and tsk'd in mock disappointment. Regardless, she couldn't help but smile at her sister's antics. "You really aught to drink less caffein. One of these days you're going to overdose on the stuff, and I won't be there to carry your twitching body to a hospital."

"Ha! You surely jest! We hath studied caffeine and found it nearly impossible to consume a lethal amount. Not like that time thou overdosed on salt licks."

Celestia instantly blushed, looking around the room hoping that no ponies were around to hear about such an embarrassing moment in her teen years. Unfortunately for her, the room was occupied by multiple guards as well as her advisor and several of her financial consultants. No doubt one of them would end up spreading this around the palace. Her face was beet red by the time she turned back to her sister. "I was very young and I'd appreciate if you wouldn't bring that up in front of the little ones."

Luna just smiled deviously. "Art thou flustered, dear sister?"

Celestia was pretty flustered, but she put on her best poker face as she answered, "No." Luna wasn't buying it, though.

"Dost thou anus beset you?"

"No!" She said with a little more force while her poker face morphed into an annoyed frown. "You came down here just to annoy me, didn't you? Can't you see I was already annoyed enough?" She asked, gesturing to the unicorn who was still talking about the economy even though it was clear that nopony was listening anymore.

Luna shrugged in response. "We are so very bored. Annoying you is always amusing, dear sister."

Unfortunately, Celestia was never able to give her response as the large doors to the throne room burst open revealing a panting guard pony. "Your majestyyyyyys," he called, noticing at the last second that both princesses were present, "There's a pony at the front gates demanding that she speaks with you!"

"A pony? Tell us, guard slave, what's so important about this pony?" Asked Luna.

The guard looked around before answering in a slightly hushed tone, "She's an alicorn!" He was met by surprised gasps from every pony in the room, except the one pony who was still talking about the economy, and of course the princesses who looked at the guard with deadpanned expressions.

"You know who Cadence is, you can let her in the gates without our permission."

"Yeah," agreed Luna. "She used to live here..."

"But it's not princess Cadence who's at the gate!" This time, even Luna and Celestia gasped.

"But... That's impossible!" Sputtered out Celestia, "All the other alicorns are dead. We made sure of it!"

Unfortunately, her fears were confirmed as a new pony stepped into the room, pushing the confused guard out of the way with a hoof. Of course, this was no ordinary, human pony. Her coat was as black as night, highlighting the stereotypical, blood-red stripes that ran across her legs, barrel, and cheeks. Her dark horn was long and looked even sharper than a vietnamese man's machete, and her wings were huge, clearly overcompensating for her lack of character. Her cutie mark was a wheel of fire, earth, darkness, water, air, and lightning, showing off her skill in a vast array of different types of magic.

She took a few steps forward as her lips curled upward into a devious grin, revealing her sharpened teeth. "Why hello princesses, I've been looking forward to this for a long time," she said in a misguided attempt at sounding mysterious.

Of course, now that the shock of a new alicorn appearing had died down, the sisters couldn't help but notice how ridiculous the newcomer looked. They both began chuckling, Celestia at least having the decency to try to hide her mirth behind a raised hoof. It didn't take long for this to devolve into full fledge laughter that lasted for several minutes. Eventually, they were able to get their laughing under control, and returned their attention to the frustrated looking alicorn who had invaded their castle.

"I'm sorry, do we know you?" Asked Celestia, sounding condescending like always.

"No, you don't know me. But I know you," she answered, still trying, and failing, to sound mysterious.

"Yes, we've gathered that much. A lot of ponies know us. We're kinda' a big deal. So, want to tell us who you are so we know who we're throwing in prison for breaking into the palace? Also, maybe, where you live. Not so we can exterminate the rest of your kind or anything, if that's what you were thinking." Assured Celestia like the smooth criminal that she is.

The black and red alicorn gave a horrible smirk that could only be described as 'sonic-the-hedgehog-esque'. "I am Nightmare Raven Von Shadowmirk the Dark, daughter of Kozilik, butcher of truth and Ulomog the infinite gyre. I was abandoned at birth and a group of vampire wolves raised me as their own in the darkest depths of the Everfree forest where the only rule is to kill or be killed. I got my cutie mark when I defeated a two-hundred foot-long dragon in a magical duel."

By the time she was finished, Luna had already face hooved, and it took every once of willpower that Celestia had not to do the same. "I asked for you name, not your life story," answered Celestia in an annoyed tone. "Either way, I hope you didn't enjoy not being in a dungeon for the rest of your life because now you're going into a dungeon for the rest of your life."

Nightmare Raven Von Shadowmirk the Dark began chuckling at this, prompting Celestia to clarify that she wasn't joking. "I'm serious, we're going to kick your shit and then you're going to rot in prison until you're dust. In case you're retarded, which is pretty likely all things considered, there are two of us, not counting the horde of ponies at our command, and only one of you."

"But you misunderstand, Celestia. There is not simply one of me," she paused for dramatic effect, but it only served to annoy everyone further. "I am simply a messenger."

Finally Luna spoke up, clearly annoyed by the conversation and wanting to get to the point. "A messenger for whom?"

"Ha ha ha! You've never heard of us. We call ourselves the Deathshadows. We are a nation of red and black alicorns that have been plotting revenge on you in secret for generations. Our numbers will darken the sky! Muahahaha!" Now she was just being obnoxious... Celestia was gettin' real tired of this shit, and was about to start firing magical lasers, when Nightmare Raven Von Shadowmirk the Dark suddenly teleported away, leaving the throne room silent.

That is, until Luna spoke up. "One black and red alicorn is bad enough... But a whole nation of them? God help us all..."

--

Meanwhile, somewhere in space!

The pristine blackness of space sat undisturbed like it had for billions of years, content with simply being there for all eternity as a vacuum. It was nearly empty, aside from a few free-floating particles, and extremely boring.

Then, as if to spite me for saying that it's empty, space began to distort before finally opening up into a massive portal into the warp. Moments later, an equally massive space ship emerged, and the portal disappeared as though it was never there at all. The bulky metal vessel, easily several kilometers long with the words 'SS Butterfly Kittens' written on the sides in huge, blocky letters, floated along without a care in the world, propelled by its super advanced turbo jet engine technology.

The bridge of the ship was considerably less carefree as its crew shuffled around tending to one task or another. At the center of it all, admiral Ashley Tisdale, and commander of the Sunshine Smiles space marine chapter stood by, a frustrated frown dominating her helmetless face. She wore a set of hot pink power armor decorated with immaculate golden flowers and covered by a pink and yellow tabard that depicted a pair of butterflies smiling happily as they pollinated a hapless flower. On her belt's magnetic lock rested a storm bolter which was also colored pink and was bejewled all over.

She continued frowning as she thought back to their ship's recent battle with an electrical daemon in the warp. Thankfully, the deamon wasn't able to do much aside from pelting the ship with several EMP grenades that it fired from its cavernous chest compartment. Even so, it did enough damage to force them to stop here. "Michelle!" She called out in the most obnoxious valley girl accent you can possibly imagine. "Like, give me a damage report!"

Michelle, a stereotypical, sassy, chubby black woman working on a nearby computer terminal, turned around in her chair and fixed Ashley with a disbelieving look. "Girl, I know you aint tryin' to tell me what to do," she said while waving her finger and head around for emphasis.

"Like, oh my god, Michelle. Just, like, answer the question!" Shot back Ashley who wasn't in the mood for this right now.

Michelle rolled her eyes in annoyance as she turned back to the computer screen. "White girls..." She muttered as she hit a few buttons with her overly-long fingernails. "The only real damage we took was some a' our systems gettin' fried like chicken'. Mmmmmmm mmmmm. Communications and our long-range scanners be offline. That's about it."

This just worsened Ashley's mood. If the communications were down she couldn't update her twitter or facebook. "Tech priest Vanessa! Tech priest Vanessa!" She yelled out as loud as she could with her annoying voice. A moment later, another space marine walked up to her. This one was wearing baby blue power armor with big white sunflower epaulets and had several metal appendages extending from her back. As she walked up she used one of those appendages to remove her helmet, never taking her eyes off the iphone 40k that she was clutching in her gauntletted hands.

"Vanessa, like, the communications are down!" Complained Ashley.

Vanessa replied with an equally annoying valley girl accent, though it came out in a machine-like tone as is the norm for tech priests. "Like, I know. I'm like, trying to commune with the machine spirits in my iphone, but it's, like, totally not working."

"Well fix it!" Demanded Ashley. "Like, my dad is paying you all so you, like, better do your jobs or else I'm going to be, like, really mad!"

"Oh my goooood. I'm like, working on it! Now shut up while I try to contact Brad." She named the spirit in her phone Brad.

Ashley just rolled her eyes at this, though. "Like you could ever have a shot with Brad. Like, you're the flattest tech priest on the whole ship!"

"Like, shut up!" Shot back Vanessa as she continued to furiously type away at the tiny keyboard on her phone with practiced speed. "You don't even know what you're talking about. Besides, my dad, like, is going to pay for me to get, like, robot breast implants."

"Yeah, you need those you whore. Mine are, like, all natural."

Tech priest Vanessa scoffed at such a heinous and obvious lie. "Like, your boobs are more fake than, like... Like..." Sadly, even her augmented brain couldn't think of anything more fake than Ashley's boobs, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "Styrofoam balls." Nice save Vanessa.

"Whatever. You're just jealous." Waved off Ashley. Unfortunately, while waving her ungauntletted hand she accidently scraped her perfectly manicured nails against a nearby bulkhead. This elicited a scream from her, which was followed by her calling out for a medic. Thankfully, chief apothecary Hannah was nearby and came to Ashley's aid almost immediately.

She was wearing white armor with baby blue and yellow highlights and her shoulder pads and chest plate were emblazoned with dozens of kitten stencils. The only thing that made her stand out as a medic were the pair of comically large syringes mounted on her cuff links.

"What's the emergency, admiral Ashley?" She asked in a soft, timid voice that didn't match the furious scowl shaped into her helmet.

In a dramatic display, admiral Ashley Tisdale held her uninjured hand to her forehead and waved her other hand around in Chief Apothecary Hannah's face, making it quite clear that IT was the problem. "Like, I think I broke a nail!" She exclaimed.

Hannah sighed in annoyance. Captain Ashley was always calling her over for stupid stuff like this. Reluctantly, she took a look at Ashley's hand, noting that her nail looked completely fine. "You're fine," she stated, eliciting an annoyed groan from Ashley.

"Like, whatever. Just go back to fucking your cats or something," commanded Ashley, being a real bitch like always. Chief Apothecary Hannah just walked off, bearing mental scars from countless insults delivered by the popular space marines. One day she'd show them all, though. One day...

During Ashley's dramatic show, the hundreds of tech priests aboard the ship finally managed to get everything working again, and Vanessa was able to once again flirt with Brad via text messages. More importantly, the long-range scanners were back online and the ship's terminals were instantly flooded with all kinds of information.

The bridge crew quickly sifted through the information like crabs sifting through refuse, looking for anything important, or, to complete the simile, anything edible. Within moments, one of them found just what they were looking for and called out. "Our scanners are picking up strange activity on a nearby planet. It could be inhabited."

"Like, finally!" Called out Ashley, more than fed up with being stuck on the ship for so long. "Let's like, land there and kill xenos and stuff!"

She was met by a round of cheers from the crew. Being a space marine meant it was basically their job to go around and murder everything that moves. As though summoned by the declaration of impending slaughter, her second in command, guard captain Helga, walked in through a nearby bulkhead. She was a massive woman, easily a head or two taller than Ashley, and more muscular than a grizzly bear on steroids. She pulled off her helmet, revealing her scarred face and insanely muscular neck.

"DID SOMEBODY SAY KILLING XENOS?!" She yelled out in a thick russian accent since people 40,000 years in the future still speak russian.

Ashley simply nodded, not in the mood to start a conversation with the overly-loud guard captain. With all the ship's systems fixed and all the major characters introduced, the bridge crew turned the massive vessel towards the unsuspecting planet and sped off through space.

Delicious Ponies

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The moon sat high in the night sky, floating through space without a care in the world and reflecting the sun's light rays off its crater-riddled surface. Far below it sat Canterlot's palace, home of Equestria's royalty. Usually seen as the hub of Equestrian activity, the palace was noticeably less busy as many of the palace slaves had gone home for the night and the day court was closed, meaning that the palace grounds were off limits to the general public. Even so, there was still one section of the palace that was alive with activity.

In a large meeting room, usually used for entertaining nobles and diplomats, sat dozens of the most important ponies in the entire country. Celestia, with her crunchy and salty body, lay with her legs folded beneath her on a large, red pillow like an exquisite pretzel. Luna, on the other hand, was full of sugar and lay sprawled out on her pillow, making her more comparable to a tasty and nutritious gummy worm. She was currently too tired to care if she looked unprofessional sitting like that as she hadn't gotten any sleep in over a day. The only thing keeping her awake was the large amount of mountain dew in her system, so much so that it was very likely that there was more of that currently circulating through her veins than actual blood cells.

Next to them, on smaller pillows, sat all the elements of harmony. Twilight Sparkle, who's a perfectly normal non-princess unicorn without even a single wing, sat noticeably close to Celestia's side, basking in her salty glory. She herself could be compared to a mass of bacon strips fastened together to look like a pony as she is the element of magic, and bacon, too, is magical.

Directly next to her sat another glorious unicorn. This one could be compared to a chicken egg; a delicate white shell on the outside, and gooey on the inside. Her name was Rarity and she was the sexiest pony in all of Equestria. Her deep purple mane and tail were perfectly curled, and her eyelashes were extra long. Long eyelashes are considered sexy by pony standards. She was also the element of generosity because she gave a generous amount of blow jobs to all the desperate stallions living in Ponyville (and sometimes Canterlot when she visited).

Unfortunately, next to her was a pair of pegasi, who don't even have horns like their glorious unicorn counterparts. One was Rainbow Dash who sat impatiently on her pillow like a colorful popsicle, melting in the sun. The other was Fluttershy who looked uncomfortable in the crowded room, like a french fry dropped in a McDonalds parking lot, hoping not to get noticed by any hungry birds.

To her right was another pair of ponies, these ones having the audacity to be born with neither horn nor wings. Normally, filthy earth ponies such as them would never be let anywhere near the pristine and beautiful palace, but they were elements of harmony, so they were the exception. One who was aptly named Pinkie Pie was double pink and bounced excitedly on her pillow like a Mexican jumping bean. The other was named Applejack and she sat patiently on her own pillow, her crispy, orange fur reminiscent of a grilled tortilla. Her yellow mane flowed down her back like tasty, melted cheese and her massive eyes were a crisp green, the same color as lettuce. To top it all off was her meaty hide, making her look like a scrumptious taco.

Across from them were all the important non-female ponies. Namely, prince Blueblood, a group of Celestia's advisors, and captain Original Character who took Shining Armor's place when he moved to the crystal kingdom. All around the room were even more ponies, who were important in one way or another, but not important enough to be described. To fill out the room were dozens of the palace's best and most trusted guards who each stood upright and stoic like ~~an erect penis.~~ a well-cooked hotdog.

Now that everyone important present had been thoroughly described, the meeting could finally start. Celestia stood up and cleared her throat, getting everyone's attention. "Alright. I'm sure those of you who weren't present in the palace earlier today are wondering why I called you all here at such a late hour, so I'll get right down to business. At approximately 12:30 pm, the castle was invaded by a red and black alicorn."

She was instantly assaulted by surprised gasps from everyone in the room, and they all began murmuring amongst themselves. Before Celestia could continue, her prized student, Twilight Sparkle spoke up, saying what everyone in the room was thinking.

"But, I thought you and princess Luna killed off all the black and red alicorns thousands of years ago. How could one have possibly visited the castle?"

Celestia was quick to answer, knowing that if she let her student go on she would only incite panic with her crazy theories. "We thought they were all dead too, until earlier today."

Unfortunately, it was too late. Twilight's brain meat was already packed to the brim with hundreds of insane theories. "Maybe it was a trick. Or maybe the red and black alicorn traveled forward in time to be annoying one final time before you spilled its blood."

Celestia raised one hoof, instantly silencing her crazy apprentice. "We have already looked into both of those theories and many more, my faithful student. I would love to believe that what happened earlier wasn't real, that the red and black alicorns are truly all dead, but it appears that that's not the case. My sister and I both felt her magic quite clearly and she was very powerful."

She began to pace as she continued explaining the situation. "The alicorn mentioned the Everfree forest when she visited, so we sent several groups of pegasi to scout out the entire forest from the air. Unfortunately, the groups we sent to the northwest, far from any of our towns, have yet to return. At this time we can only assume that she was telling the truth when she said there was an army of red and black alicorns as we simply don't have enough information."

The room instantly went into an uproar. The idea of one annoying, overpowered, character-less red and black alicorn was bad enough, but a whole army of the things? That was the stuff of nightmares.

"How can we possibly fight off an army of red and black alicorns?!" Shouted a random pony.

"What will we do?!"

"We're all doomed!" The last exclamation was made by prince Blueblood who held a hoof to his forehead in a dramatic pose that made even Rarity jealous of his acting skills.

"SHUT UP!" Yelled Luna, using the royal canterlot voice. She was starting to get a headache and she definitely wasn't in the mood to listen to them all yelling. The room instantly went silent, knowing that it was best not to annoy the lunar princess any further lest she haunt their dreams out of spite.

After a few moments, Celestia once again cleared her throat and continued. "What we are going to do is rally our forces and do whatever we can to defend against this threat as we have always done in the past. If they are northwest than they will surely attack horseington first. We'll set up defenses there and meet them head-on."

"And if that doesn't work?" Questioned Blueblood, "What if our forces can't stop them?"

Celestia let out a long sigh, anticipating this question. "If we can't beat them... I won't let them take Equestria... Anything is better than that." At the agreeing nods she got from every pony in the room, she continued her thought. "If it comes down to it, my sister and I are prepared to crash the moon into the planet. There's no way that we will possibly let those horrible things take over our fine country."

The room was silent, no one saying anything on the matter. They all agreed that it would be better to just destroy everything than let the black and red alicorns win, but they hoped it wouldn't come to that. After a few minutes of contemplative silence, Twilight spoke up once again.

"You can defeat them, though. I know you can. You did it before and I know you can do it again! Besides, we have the elements of harmony on our side." Her confidence spread to everyone in the room who looked to the princesses, intent on hearing their answers.

With all eyes on her, Celestia smiled widely, using hundreds of years of experience to mask her own uncertainty on the matter. "Of course we can," she answered, "why couldn't we defeat them all again?"

--

Celestia walked through the hall with her long, succulent legs, deep in thought. She wasn't in a particularly good mood as events from the last day kept playing through her head. Specifically, from just minutes ago at the meeting. Once the group had decided on what they were going to do, they had to discuss how they were going to do it. Unfortunately, like always, the conversation began focusing on how they were going to pay for new guards to be trained and all the other expenses involved.

Equestria was already deep in debt, they didn't just have a surplus of money lying around. It soon became clear that they would have to make some major budget cuts if they were going to be able to fund anything. Then one of her advisors worked up the gal to suggest getting rid of her olympic-sized, melted-chocolate hot tub to save money. Needless to say, Celestia was outraged at such a thing. She nearly fired the advisor right there. Fired him out of a cannon and into the sun, that is.

She turned to her younger sister who was walking by her side. "I've been leading this country for over a thousand years. I deserve my olympic-sized, melted-chocolate hot tub."

Luna yawned loudly, subtly expressing that she was too tired to discuss such things at this time. Unfortunately, in her annoyed state, Celestia didn't catch on to this and continued talking.

"I mean, I don't ask him to get rid of his stuff for budget cuts."

Seeing that her sister wasn't simply going to drop the subject, Luna decided to speak up. "No one is more deserving of an olympic-sized, melted-chocolate hot tub than you."

"Exactly!" Called out Celestia. "I'm glad someone sees that."

Luna rolled her eyes, an action that went unnoticed in the dark corridor they were walking in. Now that the two of them were finally alone, though, they could discuss what was actually important. "You don't think we can actually kill the black and red alicorns."

The statement caught Celestia slightly off guard, but she continued walking along anyway. "Of course not. Last time we had help. Not to mention we defeated them through trickery and sabotage. I'm afraid such tactics won't work against a suspecting enemy."

"And the elements of harmony?"

"Those won't do anything in this situation, you know that. We made them out of the life essence of the red and black alicorns to begin with. As such, it won't work against them. It will simply 'purify' them, much like it did to you when you were nightmare moon, and I don't think that'll be of much help in our current situation."

Luna nodded, already knowing all of that but glad that it was explained anyway so the audience knew what was going on. "Then why did you lie about it back there? Perhaps if we explained everything they could have come up with a better plan."

Celestia shook her head, disregarding that idea instantly. "If we told them that neither us nor the elements of harmony could stop them, our little ponies would lose hope. Without hope we don't stand a chance."

Luna nodded, seeing her sister's logic. "I just HOPE you're right."

Celestia stopped walking, and stared at her sister who had just made the worst attempt at a pun she had ever heard. She let out an annoyed sigh and massaged her forehead with a hoof. After such a stressful day, she was starting to get a bit of a headache. Perhaps a dip in her olympic-sized, melted-chocolate hot tub was just what she needed right now.

Violo Las Tortugas

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Captain Original Character stood near the flap of his recently erected command tent, watching the guards under his command set up camp. They had just flown in from Canterlot on chariots, carrying with them as many supplies as possible so they could set up an outpost in Horseington and it was now very early in the morning. The sun was just beginning to crest the horizon.

With a weary sigh, he pulled his decorative, golden-plated helmet off and let his magnificent blonde mane flow freely in the slight breeze. It was beautiful. His hair, I mean. He spent hours a day grooming and shampooing it to perfection, making sure it was pristine. Such was vital to his job, since in Equestria, looks are everything. I mean, just look at the princesses. Their hair is freakin' magical! No pony has been able to match their magnificent style in thousands of years, hence why they have been in charge for so long.

Not to mention the last guard captain, Shining Armor. Surely he would have made a better surfer dude than a guard captain, but his hair was fantastic and spiked to perfection, making him ideal for the job. One doesn't have to wonder for long how the changelings were able to penetrate the country's defenses so easily.

Without anything better to do, as the guards hardly needed his instructions to set up tents, Captain Original Character decided to go for a walk around their makeshift base. It was built at the edge of Horseington, a town that is exactly how it sounds. All the inhabitants are literally horses. The captain let out an involuntary shudder as he thought about the town's horrible populace. With their beady, black eyes and their elongated limbs and faces they looked pretty ho(rse)rrifying. At least by pony standards. No wonder not many ponies lived this far northwest...

He didn't get far before he was confronted by one of the locals. Mayor Neigh to be exact. She walked up to him, her chestnut coat and black mane glistening with early morning dew. She had likely just come from rolling around in the grass, which is something horses do on a regular basis.

"Why hello, captain. It's such a beautiful morning, isn't it?" The captain simply nodded his head, trying his best not to look too disgusted at the horrible creature talking to him. "But not as beautiful as you," she continued, batting her long eyelashes in a blatantly obvious attempt at seduction.

He cringed in horror as mental images of horse sex assaulted his mind. Without another word, he turned and galloped away, trying to ignore the horse shouting after him. Making sure the defenses were up to par could wait 'til later. For now, he had to get away from this horse.

--

Nix Shadowstalker crouched low into the bushes, his black and red-striped coat hidden behind the veil of his shadow magic. He was practically a ghost, a phantom, unseen and unseeable by even the most observant of ponies. He squinted his hawk-like eyes, allowing him to focus more clearly on the town just beyond the tree line. It wasn't a very large town, and was normally inhabited only by defenseless horse-beasts, but now it was crawling with pony guards.

No doubt the ponies had taken Nightmare Raven Von Shadowmirk the Dark's threat seriously and decided to do something about it. Every black and red alicorn's biggest tragic flaw is their ego and boastful nature, and now it had come back and bitten them in the ass. Instead of assaulting a defenseless town they would now have to fight what looked like over a hundred royal guards.

Nix smiled to himself, revealing his fangs and forked tongue, stained with fresh blood from the pegasi scout ponies he and his companions had killed and cannibalized just the night before, as he anticipated the coming fight. The ponies would need a lot more than a few guards to stop them...

He slowly got up, slipping back into the thick of the forest to report his findings to the rest of the black and red alicorns. No doubt commander Death Slaughter the Dark Butcher would be interested in these developments.

--

"ARE WE THERE YET?!" Bellowed guard captain Helga in unparalleled rage.

Commander Ashley Tisdale gritted her teeth, her teen angst starting to bubble over into frothing anger as this was like the hundredth time Helga had asked this. "Like, oh my god! If you ask again I am seriously going to, like, strangle you!" Her threats were ignored, though. Helga wasn't afraid of the puny commander. Her neck was so stronk and muscular that it would take no less than a genetically altered, super, cyborg gorilla to even attempt to strangle her. Such creatures were rarely found this far out in space, so she had nothing to be afraid of.

Unfortunately for commander Ashley, Helga wasn't the only one excited for the impeding xeno purge. Dreadnought Tina stood nearby as well in the spacious ship bridge, her bulky metal body painted a bright pink and decorated with all kinds of rainbows, hearts, and cute little critters. She had a heavy multi-melta attached to the end of one stubby arm and a huge power claw on the other, making her a literal close-range killing machine. "Are we there yet?!" She cried out in an unusually childish voice. Tina had been turned into a dreadnought at only the age of eight, after proving herself in countless battles, so despite being over a thousand years-old she still had the mind of a child.

Ashley's left eye began to twitch in annoyance. She was seriously considering just pulling out her storm bolter and going ape-shit on the both of them, but she thought better of it. No doubt Tina would incinerate her if she even tried something like that. Instead she answered with the same response she had already given dozens of times. "NO! WE ARE NOT THERE YET! LIKE, STOP ASKING ME!"

Then one of the nearby tech marines controlling the ship spoke up. "Yar Captain! We be here! Land ho!" She had a thick, black beard, and an eyepatch, further emphasizing that she was supposed to be a space pirate character.

Suddenly, a nearby screen flicked to life, showing a detailed view of the nearby planet. It was surprising blue and green, something that usually indicated life. This was made even more clear by the pockets of light-sources they picked up with their cameras. No doubt the dirty xeno inhabitants of this planet were also somewhat intelligent.

Ashley's rage melted away nearly immediately and was replaced with joy. "Surely the emperor, like, smiles upon us, or something."

Nearby Tina and Helga hopped around giddily, anticipating the massive slaughter of unholy xenos in the emperor's name that was sure to come.

Something will happen eventually