The Return of the Dark Lightning Menace

The morning sun had risen over the town of Ponyville and Sunset Shimmer has finally woken up. As she turns on the bed, she starts feeling the spot where Eternal Flames slept in. Unfortunately, all she felt was the bed covers. Her eyes flew wide open and gasped seeing that her coltfriend had left early, but he left a note on the pillow. Sunset reached for it and read it.

"Dear Sunset,

Forgive me for doing this, but I had to leave a bit early to try to settle the score with Thunder Drum. I didn't want to risk putting you and our unborn child in danger. Please understand that I truly love you. Please keep yourself safe and don't stress out. I vow to to return home as soon as this whole ordeal is finally put to rest.

P.S That's a promise I still intend to keep.

Yours

Eternal Flames."

Sunset then felt a tear drop down her face and began to cry. She buried her face in the pillow fearing the worst for Eternal. The sound of her sobbing caused the door to fling wide open revealing the guys.

"What the hell is going on here?" Ground Dasher asks. Without a word, Sunset gives Ground Dasher the letter Eternal wrote to her. The other guys read it and soon got shocked expressions on their faces.

"SHIT! We have to get to the desert terrain!" Shadow Force says.

"How? We don't have the map, Eternal probably took it with him!" Tidal Wave says.

"DAMN IT!" Ground Dasher shouts. "How the hell are we suppose to find him now?"

"Wait, I know!" Heat Wave says, making the others turn to him.

"Really, how?" Sunset asks.

"Twilight Sparkle has a map in her castle, a BIG one! She uses it all the time whenever there's a friendship problem anywhere in all of Equestria, which means it'll be easier to find Eternal!" Heat Wave explains.

"Then lets not waste any time. Eternal could be starting the battle right now." Spark says. The rogues, along with Sunset, soon made their way out of the house and over to Twilight's castle, but the trip was a bit slow with the fact that Sunset was actually pregnant with at the moment with Eternal's child. After arriving, they told Twilight about the situation and immediately gathered her friends in a matter of 20 minutes. Then they made their way inside the castle and over to the map of Equestria. It didn't take long for Twilight to point out the location of the desert terrain and got the directions. The gang then followed Twilight close behind as they left Ponyville to find their friend.

--

Miles away from Ponyville, Eternal Flames was gliding through the terrain in the air, looking for the tyrant, Thunder Drum. It took him a good whole minute to have the tyrant in his line of sight. He then flew over towards Thunder Drum and landed behind him. Thunder Drum then slowly opened his eyes, not even looking at Eternal or catching a glimpse of him.

"So, you're in that much of a hurry to die?" Thunder asks.

"If anypony is going to perish, it's you!" Eternal said.

"Pah, you probably don't have the guts to kill me. I may not know much about you, but I can guess that you've never killed a soul in your entire 18 years and 11 months." Thunder Drum says, confidentally.

"You're right, I didn't kill anypony throughout my whole life, because they either died destroying themselves, left the battle with severe injuries and never bothered me again, AND because I still have a heart and soul." Eternal explains. Thunder then turned around to face Eternal Flames and continued to talk. "A power-hungry jackass like you could NEVER understand what it truly means to be a leader. You hide yourself in the shadows and pounce at your opponents at the last minute when they have nothing left to give. You're nothing but a ruthless, gruesome, spineless, dishonorable, COWARD!"

"SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH RIGHT NOW, YOU TWAT!" Thunder shouts with a snarl. "You have NO RIGHT calling me such treacherous and despicible names! Do you see anypony I'm holding hostage? DO YOU?! TAKE A LOOK AROUND YOU!" Thunder shouts. Eternal didn't need to be asked twice and proceeded to look around seeing only the desert sand, the boulders, hills and mountains.

"That still doesn't change the fact that you kidnapped my brother last time." Eternal says, glaring at Thunder.

"True, but he's not here, is he?" Thunder asks. "No, it's just you and me. Call me whatever you want, but I'm going to settle this with you, one on one, no bullshit, no hostages, no ambushes, or surprise attacks. But one more thing." Thunder then paused for a moment to walk towards Eternal Flames. "Don't...EVER...call...me...DISHONORABLE!!!" Thunder shouts in Eternal's face. Eternal didn't even flinch and instead just stood there still glaring at Thunder Drum eye to eye.

"Then why don't you prove it today by getting this fight over with." Eternal says.

"As you wish...your majesty!" Thunder says, hunching back. Eternal did the same and they both circled around each other. Eternal Flames' fire powers immediately engulfed his body, while Thunder Drum was engulfed in his dark and lightning powers. They circled around each other 3 times until they leaped at each other, clashing their heads.

--

Meanwhile, the gang had wasted no time and made it to the desert terrain. The only problem now was finding the location of where the two stallions were since the terrain was fairly large.

"How the hell are we gonna find that hot head of a leader of yours?" Rainbow asks the guys.

"If I remember correctly, we can pick up where he is if he's using his powers." Hurricane Blitz explains.

"But how can y'all do that?" Applejack asks.

"It's in our blood. We got our powers passed down from our ancestors who got them from the phoenix gods." Spark said.

"It's kinda similar to Discord sensing a disturbance in the magical balance." Hurricane says.

"If we can get at least a slight sense of Eternal's fire powers, we'll know exactly where he is!" Tidal Wave says.

"But what if he's using them now and we don't know about it?" Sunset asks.

"It'll depend on the distance between us and how much of his power he's using. If he's far away, he'd have to be using up a lot of his powers in order for us to notice it." Ground Dasher explains.

"Well let's cross our hooves hopin' he's close by." Applejack says.

The gang kept dashing around the terrain hoping to find Eternal and Thunder Drum. But the efforts weren't getting any good results until finally, they hatched a different plan.

"Shadow, at the rate we're going at this, we might not find his as quick." Twilight said.

"You're right. We'll have to split up into 4 teams." Shadow explains. "Hurricane, Tidal, you two take Fluttershy and Rarity and go west, Ground Dasher, you go along with Applejack and Rainbow Dash and search east, Spark Wave, take Spike and Pinkie with you and search the south, Twilight, Sunset, Heat Wave and I will search the north." Shadow ordered. "If one of our groups find him, shoot out your powers and we'll meet up with you, is that understood?"

"Yes" everypony replied.

"Alright...LET'S MOVE!" Shadow shouted.

Soon everypony split up in each different direction to search for Eternal Flames.

--

Eternal Flames and Thunder Drum were locked in an aerial hoof-to-hoof combat fight over the desert terrain. Their movements became more lightning fast with each passing second.

"So you're taking this more seriously, aren't ya, Thunder?" Eternal grunted, still fighting.

"Like I said, I was fooling around last time, but THIS TIME it's different!" Thunder replied, still fighting.

The fight continued with Eternal Flames launching and blocking blow after blow. Finally, Thunder Drum landed a shot onto Eterna's right side with his left hinde hoof. Eternal grunted in pain and attempted to land a kick himself, but Thunder dodged and uppercutted him far higher into the air, followed him, and caught him in a stranglehold. Eternal then loosened up and broke free. He then landing a blow straight onto Thunder Drum's face with his left hoof in a hook motion. Eternal charged at him and began his assault on him once again. The two stallion weren't letting off, not even for a second.

Then Thunder Drum blew Eternal Flames down onto the hard ground using with his powers sending him several feet away. Eternal felt the pain as he hit the ground head first. He attempts to get up but Thunder Drum was too quick as he flew a lightning speed and pinned him to the ground with his entire body. Eternal coughed up a few droplets of blood.

"You can't escape my grasp this time, "young prince." Thunder says. "Do you even know WHY my goal is to become king?" Eternal didn't really care about his ambitions, but he shook his head left and right to find out why he's doing this. "Think about it, this world is filled with evil and all we're doing so far is sitting on our flanks doing nothing but throwing half-assed parties while the ENEMIES are planning attacks that could cost us all of Equestria. I'm trying to do you all a favor by turning all the weaklings in Equestria into soldiers and finally put to stop to all evil once and for all! What do you think THAT makes me?"

"A moron!" Eternal replies, trying to get up. "The world IS filled with evil, but that's no excuse taking away the peaceful lives of the citizens of Equestria just to force them into war. Their lives are important to us. So tell me this. What will you do if they REFUSE to work for you if you did take the crown?"

"Is that even a question? I'd send the weak-minded traitors to Tartarus! I'll send all the weaklings there and keep the strong, anything else you want to say to that?" Thunder says with a grin.

"See, this is why you will NEVER be a leader." Eternal says, finally kicking Thunder off of him. "Your ambitions sicken me. A true leader fights for the weak. You're just to blinded by the fact that just because you have these powers you think you're above everypony else, but in reality you're NOT!"

"Say what you wish, but I WILL BECOME KING! Now let's finish this!" Thunder says, powering up.

"Yes, lets!" Eternal replies powering up as well. "I'll even show something else I've learned during your absence when you werre in Tartarus, but know that it'll leave quite an impact on BOTH of us."