Rarity woke to darkness. Oh! she thought, her wits still slow from sleep what a horrible nightmare! She couldn’t of been kidnapped by some strange human! That didn’t make any sense in the waking world!

She tried to raise a hoof to turn on her light that was on her nightstand when she noticed some unpleasant things.

One: she couldn’t move her hoof at all; further investigation showed that she couldn’t move her whole body at all.

Two: She wasn’t in her bed either.

The white mare started to hyperventilate in panic, trying to thrash around, attempting to break free.

“HELP!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, hoping against hope that this was just some sick joke and her friends would pop out any second and release her. But for all her screaming and begging she got nothing but the pitch black darkness that surrounded her.

Eventually becoming too hoarse to yell, she just laid there, waiting for someone or something to come to her.

And hopefully that being was a friendly chap that would free her.

So the alabaster played one of her least favorite games, the waiting game, for what seemed like hours she tried to keep herself from becoming a shimmering panicked mess when she saw a light coming toward her. The mare had to contain herself from screaming at the light, afraid that it would leave if she was too loud.

The light didn’t leave though, it became bigger and soon Rarity heard footsteps. She steeled herself, she wasn’t going to show this ruffian any fear! She was going to be a lady and face her kidnapper with grace and charm!

After giving herself a little pep talk she noticed that the light had stopped moving toward her. Rarity flinched as a voice cut through the darkness.

“Well well well, it looks like our little prisoner’s wake.”

The light whizzed past her and there was the sound of glass breaking, followed by a blinding light that forced Rarity to close her eyes.

“You ruffian!” Rarity scolded, trying to get use to the light. “I demand that you release me at once!”

Someone chuckled evilly at her. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that Miss…”

“My name will not be given to such a brute as yourself.” Rarity said as her eyes began to get used to the light. She still couldn’t see her captor but it was only a matter of time.

She heard chuckling again. “That is wise of you milady, names are dangerous things… and I am more of a monster than a brute if you would humor my input.”

If she wasn’t tied by and held against her will Rarity would have complemented the voice on being so well spoken… him, and she could tell by the tone of the voice it was a male, calling himself a monster with almost amusement in his voice was just disquieting for the mare.

The voice continued. “I suppose you’re wondering why I took you from your home, and if I mean you any harm while you are in my… tender care.”

She was about to retort when her vision finally settled, and anything she was about to say was replaced with pure terror. All around her were hooks, knives, and cleavers, most of them covered in blood and gore.

But the worst thing was her captor. He was the same red-eyed human that had knocked her out, but with the light she could see him clearly. He was about Longstrider’s height but with a slim frame. He was wearing a leather apron, which also had dried blood and gore on it.

Looking up toward his face her terror increased. He had a predator’s face, with fangs longer than Forge’s or the others, and a pair of cruel looking eyes that held little emotion.

Ironheart saw the terror on her face and smiled. “Now my lady” he cooed. “There is nothing to be scared of, those restraints are for your own safety, my followers aren’t the gentle sort and we wouldn’t want that pretty face ruined.”

He stood before her and bowed. “I am Ironheart, the fallen thane, kin killer, and all around bad man. It is nice to meet you my lady.” When he looked up to see the mare still shivering he sighed. “You know ma’am, it is rude not to introduce yourself.” He sharply told her.

Rarity gulped, trying and failing to keep the fear out of her voice. “I-I’m R-Rarity.”

Ironheart hummed, walking over to a table and picking up a knife he walked over to Rarity, whose eyes widened with fear.

“Well it is an honor meeting you Miss Rarity.” He politely said, running the tip of the knife along her belly, not enough to pierce the skin but enough to feel it. “I’m sure you’ve met my ex-brothers?”

Rarity, who was crying at this point, nodded.

“Well, to answer your earlier thought Miss Rarity; I need your help to kill my brothers. I know what you’re thinking, why would I need a wonderful mare like yourself to do this horrible thing?” He gave her a toothy smile, seeing that her Quicksilver was beeping red, the Thanes would be here soon.

“Well darling, you are, in simple terms, bait.”…

The Fort…

Forge woke like he did whenever he went to a party, under a pile of bottles and with a hangover. “O shit, my head.” Forge muttered, looking around at all of the passed out ponies all around. Squinting in search of a half empty bottle he noticed that Longstrider was right next to him.

“Longstrider, wake up.” Forge said nudging his passed out brother.

“Mumfff, nooooo.” Longstrider muttered, trying to get away from the poking. After a minute it went away, before he felt a bottle being broken over his head.

“GODDAMIT!” Longstrider shouted, looking around for the perpetrator to beat down. All he saw was a bemused looking Forge.

“Time to get up” The blacksmith told him “we partied a little too hard last night.”

Longstrider sighed and snatched the bottle from his brother, taking a big swig. “We party hard every time.”

“Longstrider, do you think we’re alcoholics?”

Longstrider looked at his brother, the question throwing him off. Before he could answer Reaper fell from the rafters with a thud and a grown. “O fuck me, my head.” Reaper said.

Longstrider chuckled. “Na, I don’t think so.”

The brothers chuckled as Forge got up. “Alright” he said, “Time to wake-” He stopped as Quicksilver floated toward his face, forming into a phone.

“Huh” he said puzzled as he grabbed it “Twilight must of figured out that the girls could call me. I should tell her that this is only for emergencies though…. Hello?”

Instead of the Twilight or one of the other elements voices coming out of the phone, it was the voice of a dead man.

“Hello brother.”

If his ‘phone’ didn’t float by itself Forge would have dropped it in shock.

“I’m sure you’re surprised to hear from me, you did ‘kill’ me after all. But forget about that, I have somepony that would like to talk to you. Say something dear.”

“F-Forge h-help! This -uck!”

“That’s enough Rarity, dear. Well it was nice talking to you Forge, ta ta.”

The three Thanes looked at each other in shock, then anger. The betrayer had captured Rarity to do god knows what to her! Well now they would to the job right this time, Ironheart wasn’t coming out alive.

Forge snarled. “Longstrider go see if the other elements are okay, Reaper, you and me are getting everyone up” Forge checked the connection of his Quicksilver. It showed that Rarity’s quicksilver was at the diamond dog cave “we got a pony to save!”

They nodded at each other as Forge walked over to some of the guards, kicking and bellowing for them to get up…

20 minutes later…

In short order Celestia and Luna were made aware of the situation, the elements had no less than 30 guards protecting each of them, the rest of the guards were ready to storm the cave, and the Thanes were ready for battle.

Twilight, who was being dogged by her guards walked over to Forge, who was bellowing orders as he strapped his sword on with a good number of throwing axes. The confused unicorn didn’t know why she had to come to the fort with the and why the others were here, but in her opinion it couldn’t be good.

“Forge, what’s going on? Why are we here? And where is Rarity?” She asked.

Forge looked down at her and grimaced. “Rarity’s been kidnapped.”

“WHAT?!” Twilight roared. “We need to go sa-”

“Not we” Forge said “You five are staying here, when Celestia and Luna get here tell them to get to the diamond dog cave.”

Before Twilight could say anything Forge turned to the assembled soldiers. “Alright fillies” he said, “time to move out. You know your role in this op, if this isn’t done to perfection then a civilian could die. Now do we want that?”

“SIR NO SIR!”

“Out-fucking-standing!” With that everyone that had to go raced to the diamond dog cave, leaving an upset Twilight and friends in the dust…

Two goblins waited at the entrance of the cave, ready to kill anything that dared to show itself. One of the goblins turned toward the other one, bored out of his mind. “Hey Ifth.”

“Ya Narf?”

“Do you want to play a game of I spy?” Ifth looked at Narf for a long moment.

“*sigh* you go first.” The big goblins looked around excitedly for something that he was sure that his guardsmate wouldn’t see.

“O o o I spy with my little-*snap*” No one would know what Narf the goblin was spying after that, Forge snapping his neck as the other goblin had his throat cut by Reaper.

Throwing the guards into the bushes the two Thanes stealthily snuck into the mouth of the cave, avoiding or killing the random patrols that they happened to cross. Soon they made it to the main chamber, seeing that the goblins had been quite busy.

There was a foul smell in the air, something between rotten meat and hot dirty garbage. There were stacks of rickety bridges that crisscrossed the whole thing, a standard in goblin caves. The sounds of pickaxes hitting stone could be heard even from where they were.

Forge grimaced “The goblins must have killed the dogs and set up shop a few weeks ago. Why did that fucker have to use goblins?”

“What does fuck mean silly?” Fortunately for Pinkie, Forge stopped himself from destroying her face with his armor plated fist. He turned toward her and scowled along with Reaper, who was about to stab her. What was worse was that Pinkie wasn’t alone, the other elements were there too, each of them sporting big smiles.

“What the fuck are you girls doing here?! How did you get away from your guards?”

……

The Fort

A large group of guards waited patiently outside the restrooms. One of them looked at one of his fellow female guardsman, a perplexed expression on his face.

“Why do mares spend so much time in the bathroom?” he asked her.

The mare chortled “I can’t tell you that silly” she told him “You have to get into the fillies only club.”

“Alright… How long do you think they’ll be in there?”

“For about another two hours or so…”

……

Back at the cave

Forge looked at the girls carefully after they told him they snuck out of the bathroom. “So you’re telling me that you left the safety of your guards and snuck into the most dangerous place you could be at the moment?”

Twilight nodded confidently at him. “We need to help!”

Forge growled at her. “Twilight” he said slowly “This is a rescue and destroy op. Are you going to kill anyone?” Her and the girls horrified expressions were all answer he needed.

Turning toward Reaper he said, “Reaper get these girls back to the surface I’ll wait here and-”

With a roar the finally realized that they were surrounded by goblins, with no less than fifty arrows trained on them. Seeing that they were trapped he glared at Twilight, who was standing there terrified.

“This is your goddamn fault…”

The goblins herded the group through a network of bridges and passages, the ponies shaking in fear and the two Thanes were still pretty pissed off at the girls. They also had their weapons taken off them and their arms were bound, which did not improve their moods.

Twilight trotted closer to Forge, who was growling at a pair of the black monsters that were trying to carry all of his throwing axes. If she was honest with herself, Twilight was scared out of her mind, the goblins were talking about what parts of the ponies they were going to get for supper and that really wasn’t making her feel comfortable.

Twilight ‘the egghead’ Sparkle, who was too terrified to use that brilliant mind of hers, decided to ask Forge an obvious question. “Forge, what are we going to do?”

Forge looked down at her, a frown on his face. “Since we can’t escape without one of you girls getting killed we need to wait for an opportunity.”

Applejack, who was carrying a petrified Fluttershy on her back, looked at Forge like he had just grown a new head. “Whatcha mean we gotta wait?”

“Ya!” Rainbow said “Why don’t ya just burn them all up?”

Forge rolled his eyes and nudged his head at the two groups ahead and behind them, the goblins that had arrows notched and trained at them. “I can get the ones close to us but we’ll look like porcupines before anyone of us takes two steps.”

“No talking!” A goblin roared, hitting Forge in the back of his helmet with his spear. Said Thane stopped and spun around. Before the goblin could act he head butted it so hard the goblin slumped to the ground, dead, its face smashed in.

The whole group stopped, shocked at the dead goblin. Fluttershy took one look at the body before throwing up, followed by Twilight, then Applejack, Rainbow was able to keep her lunch down. Forge ignored all this, his helmet covered in blood and gore, content with just growling at the monsters, who muttered angrily at the human but did nothing to him, they had their orders after all.

Forge looked at the pale, sick, and scared Twilight, a calming smile on his face. Patting her on the head to told her, “It’ll be okay Twilight, there’s more going on than our asses getting captured. Call it a lucky guess but I think we’ll be free in no time”…

…..

The lower levels of the cave

A group of goblin guards waited under one of the support beams that held up everything above. Two were asleep and the other two were about ready to conk out. If the guard on the left was a little more alert he would have noticed the midnight blue hoof raise up behind him.

“Judo chop!” Chopping the goblin in the neck NightWing watched as the goblin slumped down, out cold. Her other squadmates were a little more brutal in their takedowns, usually consisting of swords or knives to the throat.

Cloud rolled his eyes at Night as he whipped the blood off his blade. “Was that necessary?”

Driving her blade through the unconscious goblins neck, NightWing looked up at him with a smile. “I wanted to see if it would work.”

Rolling his eyes again Cloud put his blade away and walked over to the giant support beam right in front of them, the others following. Walking around it Gilda whistled, the stone support was at least thirty feet around and completely solid.

“How in the buck are we going to break that?” The griffin asked as the unicorn of the squad’s horn glowed, her magic trying to find weaknesses in the rock.

“Is there any way to break it clean Sunshine?” Cloud asked.

The mare shook her head. “Nope, and I don’t think I have any spells to blow through it either.”

Night rolled her eyes and pushed the mare out of the way, her nose in the air. “Don’t worry everypony; I got this.” Trotting up to the beam she looked it up and down, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Hmmmmm….”

After a moment she nodded, a look of realization on her face. Turning around Night reared her back legs and bucked the beam as hard as she could, her squad watching with a mixture of confusion and face-hoofing as her legs connected to the stone, a sharp thud resonating throughout the giant room.

What happened a moment after was what everyone was pretty much expecting. Night howled, dropping to the ground and rolling around.

“Owowowowowowowowowowowowowo!” she yelled.

“Night!” Cloud hissed, “quiet down, we don’t want-“

BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The group flinched then glared at Night, who smiled sheepishly back at them. The horn blared again, the ponies and griffin were instantly made aware of a huge group of goblins, heavily armed goblins that there running toward them, some calling for their blood, some yelling war cries.

Night rose and drew her sword, the others drawing right after her, ready for the grim battle. Night and Cloud looked at each other, a small smirk on Night’s face. “I’ll take the ones on the right” she said to him “You can get the rest.”

Despite the direness of the situation Cloud and the others couldn’t help but chuckle….

Forge and the others were led to what looked like a crossroads of sorts, goblins covering every inch of the bridges throughout the cavern. A little ways away there was a cliff that probably served as a balcony.

Forge growled and at once noisy goblins quieted. “Just come out you cunt so we can get this over with.”

There was a resounding laughter that echoed throughout dome. The girls shivered, this wasn’t a happy laugh or a joy-filled laugh, it was a laugh that held no warmth in it at all.

It was so quiet that that they could hear someone’s footsteps resounding up on the hill, revealing Ironheart with Rarity in tow. Forge quietly breathed a sigh of relief, other than looking as scared as all hell the mare looked perfectly fine.

Ironheart looked down at his brothers with contempt. “Hello Forge, Reaper, you two haven’t aged a day.”

Forge and Reaper just turned their heads and spat, the hate plain on their faces.

Ironheart tsked as the goblins muttered angrily at the Thanes, fingering their collective blades. “Now what kind of greeting is that? I thought you’d be happy to see your long lost brother.”

“You’re no brother of mine.” Forge growled.

The mares saw a look of fury of the red-eyed humans face for an instant, which soon turned into a cool look. It looked like he was about to retort when there was a large crash to the right of them.

“I’m coming Rarity!” A voice yelled.

“Is that… Spike?” Twilight asked as everyone turned to see the purple dragon with a sword he had somehow acquired.

Spike jumped heroically over a group of goblins and landed in with the ponies and humans. “Don’t worry guys” he said, walking over to a goblin “I’ll free us.” He then proceeded to wave his sword around, not hitting the goblins at all. What was worse was that he was making swooshing sounds.

Forge’s hand became well acquainted with his face as the goblins started to laugh. One of the said monsters took a step forward and lazily swiped Spike’s sword out of his hand, sending the goblins into further hysterics.

His hand still stuck to his face Forge said with mock enthusiasm, “Good fucking job Spike! You really saved us!”

Wiping a tear from his eye, Ironheart raised his hand, almost thirty arrows being drawn and trained at the soon to be doomed group. “By the way” Ironheart said, “Where is Longstrider? I would have liked to of heard one of his witty remarks before you all died.”

Forge chuckled, “Oh, he’s right behind you.”

The fallen Thane looked confused at the statement. That confusion turned into shock and then pain as Longstrider put his knife through his throat and knocked him down from the hill to fall at the group’s feet.

As the goblins stood around confused at what happened the Thanes acted. Reaper grabbed Spike and yanked him toward the group as Forge put his mailed fist into the face of the guard that was holding their weapons, the force of the punch sending the said weapons into the air and the goblins through his brothers, sending many of them crashing over the bridge and down toward the abyss below.

While the weapons were still in the air Forge tossed Reaper his knives and launched his sword a little higher in the air before grabbing his throwing axes, which he use to devastating effect coupled with Longstrider’s arrows. Longstrider, after shooting everything that had a bow and arrow in his hand grabbed a now dazed Rarity and jumped down.

The goblins as a group took a few steps back as the events unfolded. Grinning as he caught his blade Forge looked at the group of bewildered ponies and dragon. “Reaper, Longstrider, Spike, each of you grab two mares, we’re making a hasty retreat, I’ll lead the front.”

Nodding they did what Forge said as the goblins regained their senses, pulling out their weapons and starting toward the group, intent on avenging their leader. Flicking his wrist Forge watched as a thick cluster of steel bars shot out from his gauntlet and became a shield. Slamming his new shield into his sword Forge roared, the goblins taking a step back at the ferocity.

Getting his battle giggles Forge pointed toward a bridge and raced to it, the other two humans and dragon, with ponies in tow, following. Some of the goblins tried to get out of the way as Forge crashed into them, content with just knocking them down from the bridge as an army of goblins were right at their heels.

At this point most of the girls had gotten out of their shock. Rarity and Fluttershy were clutching desperately to Spike, Pinkie was having a blast, yelling “weeeeee!” as Twilight closed her eyes, hoping against hope that this was all a dream. Longstrider though as having problems with Rainbow, who was trying to wiggle out of his grasp.

The group watched as a massive group of the beasts charging toward them, their spears pointed outward. Realizing that Forge was too gone to stop from attacking the group, Reaper charged up and kicked his snarling brother in the ass to the walkway above them.

“Ow, you fucker!” Forge roared as he started for the goblins on his level.

“Longstrider, Spike, get up there!” Reaper yelled as he dodged a volley of arrows.

Spike looked up at him, scared out of his mind, as he held Fluttershy and Rarity. There’s no way I can make that jump! He thought as looked up at the walkway, which was about fifteen feet above them.

He was about to tell Reaper this he looked at Rarity and then he stopped. The mare was looking up at him with the utmost confidence. She believed in him… As the realization washed over him the drake’s back straightened, if she believed in him he could do it!

Holding his breath and bending his knees Spike jumped into the air as hard as he could, not taking into account that he might be way stronger than he was when he was little.

“TOO HIGH SPIKE!” Rarity shrilly yelled as they sailed over the walkway and landed hard, Spike rolling to his feet.

Satisfied that the others were safe Reaper threw Pinkie and Twilight up as well and drew his blades as the goblins grew ever closer.

“Come on, just a liiittle closer.” The Thane muttered as the goblins grinned, ready to tear the human apart. With a flick of his wrist Reapers daggers flew past the group to cut the walkways ropes. The goblins only had time to scream in fright as the walkway gave way, Reaper jumping up to safety with a small smile on his face.

His reprieve was cut short as another group of the monsters came up from behind him, Reaper using his Kenyan speed to catch his brothers.

“Quite it Dash!” Longstrider growled as he dodged a throwing spear that sailed right past him.

The cyan mare wouldn’t relent though, “Let me go!” She yelled “I Can help!”

Applejack smacked her friend, a disapproving look on her face. “Quiet it Dash! Ya can’t go flying around anyway with all those arrows flyin’ around, you’ll get hurt!”

Grumbling the Pegasus stopped as Longstrider looked down at her and grinned. “Don’t worry Dash, we wouldn’t even need your help in a few minutes, the house is going to be brought down on this place in a minute or two.”…

The goblins were almost upon them and the little squad was ready to die heroically, Night was in fact aiming to gut one of the biggest in the pack, the one that was leading the charge with a massive greatsword in hand.

But as the goblins got within arm’s length a few things happened at once.

A massive amount of magical discharge was unleashed in the room.

Three figures landed in front of the surprised guardsponies and griffin.

Finally, the goblins were turned into dust by said magic.

As the smoke cleared the group was able to make out the figures, it was Celestia, Luna, and empress Isbalia. Not forgetting that they were now in the presence of royalty the squad scrambled to bow, making Celestia giggle quietly to herself.

“Rise my subjects and Private Gilda, there is no need for that here.”

Luna butted in, “We hath come to aid thee.”

Night nudged her head at the massive pillar. “We could use a little help with that.”

Oddly the griffins empress was the one to help out. “Don’t worry dearie” She motherly tone, patting Night in the cheek before walking up to the pillar.

Looking to up and down she nodded to herself. Gilda watched as the griffin turned from the usually massively overweight motherly griffin into a terror, what Gilda thought was fat shifted into pure muscle as Isbalia roared and took a swipe at the poor pillar. Watching as it exploded on impact Gilda couldn’t help but gulp. I’m glad I work for her Gilda thought as the cave started to violently shake, singling that a mountain was about to fall on their heads….

“Everything’s shaking, why is everything shaking?!” Rainbow screamed as a boulder fell down from the ceiling and smashed into a neighboring bridge, killing every goblin that had the bad luck to be on it.

Longstrider grinned down at her as they saw the entrance to the tunnel. “I told you the house was going to be brought down!” In front of them Forge kept laughing as the now retreating goblins tried to get away from the berserk Thane.

Another boulder fell and this time hit their bridge, thankfully bouncing off but sending everyone on that bridge into the air. As luck would have it the Thanes were thrown through the entrance, landing painfully on the ground in front of the rest to the army of recruits.

Forge was on his feet in an instant, roaring out orders as the elements and Spike were herded away. “form up, form up you bastards! We got company!”

Getting to the front line of the battle formation Forge grinned as the goblins started to stream out. Looks like the new Thanes are getting a baptism by fire he gleefully thought as he and his new brothers and sisters answered the monsters war cries with their own…

20 minutes later

Celestia looked down at her student with disappointment. Twilight’s friends were crowded around Rarity, coddling the mare as the unicorn held her head down in shame.

“I’m very disappointed, Twilight.” The princess said, the words hitting Twilight like a ton of bricks as the princess continued.

“You deliberately disobeyed me and put everypony in danger. Those goblins aren’t like anything you’ve ever fought!”

“Princess” Twilight said, her voice barely a whisper. “Who was that human?”

Those words hit Celestia like a ton of bricks, even now she could still barely belief that Ironheart was alive. “....He was a friend turned enemy by dear student, and his betrayal was felt by us all.” The monarch whispered, not believing for an instant that he wasn’t still alive somewhere.

“Well that was fun.” Longstrider muttered as he and Forge walked through the throngs of dead and dying goblins. The plan had worked perfectly, none of the good guys were hurt and the goblins that weren’t crushed by rocks were killed by their blades. Some of the group were hurt though, and others were throwing up because the horrors of battle.

Longstrider gave his brother a cheery smile as he drove a spear through a goblin. “Well this turned out to be a good day, the bad guys died and the good guys won!”

Forge grunted but said nothing, killing a goblin with a flick of his wrist. “How did that bastard survive?” He muttered.

His brother turned toward him with a shrug. “No idea, we saw Warlock hang him after all. Maybe Discord did something to him to make him unkillable.”

Forge grunted again. “With our luck the bastard isn’t dead.”

Longstrider smiled at that. “Then we can just kill the bastard again! And next time we can take our time with him!” Forge smiled darkenly at that as he stabbed the last goblin. Tia would use her sun powers and the goblins would be dust in a little while.

“Alright fillies!” He yelled “Time for graduation!”…

“Why couldn’t they of at least let us take a bath first?” Cloud grumbled next to Night as he waited with the Thanes for their graduation.

The batmare nudged him and grinned. “Eager to get assigned Skippy? Hopefully we get stuck together.”

Dear sweet Celestia I hope not Cloud thought as Forge was seen coming out of the smithy.

“Come here fillies!” He called, the now confused group following him into the smithy. What they saw there made all of their tiredness and wounds forgotten.

They finally saw what Forge had spent countless nights working on. There on five hundred mannequins were black sets of armor. Forge chuckled at his guard’s enthusiasm. “Go find your armor ladies, you’re names are on them!”

Looking at each other the guards scrambled to find their armor, and after a lot of pushing and shoving Night found hers. It was all black plate armor with the signature grinning skull on the flank of each one. It was mostly just plain armor though, not worn for decoration or comfort but to protect.

Seeing that others were putting their armor on Night did the same, surprised to see another layer to chainmail under the plate. After five minutes of grunting Night found that her armor was oddly light and fit perfectly.

Soon the guards were chatting about their armor before Forge whistled. “Line up fillies!”

After they followed his orders Forge stood in front of them beaming. “You guys did it! You’re Thanes! All the trials you passed with flying colors! I feel like a mother robin seeing her baby birds fly out of the nest!”

The guards chuckled at this as Forge continued.

“Now some of you are getting a very high honor” The guards perked up at this “You’ll be guarding the elements and training the next batch of soldiers that passes through here. If you are lucky enough to receive this honor you’ll be promoted to Sergeant and your pay will be doubled.”

After that Forge started to rattle off names, the lucky ponies trotting over to him with their chests puffed out in pride. Cloud half listened to the names until he heard, “NightWing!” The said mare flew into the air with a squee and now Cloud was uttering the same saying over and over again, almost like a prayer. Pleasepleasepleaseplease- “CloudKicker!”

Cloud slumped to the ground in defeat as Night flew over to him excitedly. “I knew we would be put in the same assignment! Cloud are you okay?” Cloud now knew that there were no gods, at least no merciful ones. To deal with the situation he did the only thing that he could, try to bash his skull in on the floor….

Rarity sighed as she gave a half-hearted smile to her friends, who wouldn’t stop fawning over her. She really wasn’t in shock or anything, that human hadn’t done much, if anything she was in shock of how much dirt she had gotten on her coat. The girls were all around her with Spike sleeping on a couch, the dragon exhausted from the day’s events.

Her other friends weren’t holding up as well as she was. Most of them were still feeling sick from seeing all of that blood; Twilight was the worst, after the little battle was over Celestia had chewed her out. So it was actually Rarity’s job to comfort her friends, which was odd given that she was the one that was held against her will.

But if she was anything Rarity was a lady, and a lady was there for her friends.

“Rarity, Rarity, Hellooo!” Rarity shook her head, realizing that Twilight was waving a hoof on front of her face.

Biting back comments on her unladylike behavior Rarity smiled and said, “Oh I’m sorry, Twilight, darling, I was just swept up in my own thoughts.”

The girls nodded sympathetically, Twilight put a hoof on her friends shoulder to comfort her. “I understand Ra-” The door slammed open, revealing Forge. Twilight and the others hung their heads low in shame as the Thane entered the room.

Looking over at the girls Forge laughed. “Calm down girls, I’m not mad” They perked up at this “Just remember to leave the dangerous stuff to us. Now” Leaning down he looked Rarity over, making the mares heart flutter.

“Miss Rarity, now you gave Tia a report on what happened, did you leave anything out? Did he say anything that might show where he might have gone if he survived?”

The mare nodded, making Forge grunt. “Alright…. Well if you need anything you know where to find me.”

Rarity watched as her knight in shining armor turned around to go. Now it was her chance!

“Ummm Forger?” She said nervous “Could I speak to you alone?” The other girls took the hint, making up thin excuses before leaving, leaving Forge and Rarity alone with a sleeping Spike. Alright Rarity you can do this! Get your man!

As Rarity was about to speak her undying love to Forge the blacksmith smiled sadly at her. Kneeling down to her eye level he put a hand on her shoulder. “I know what you’re going to say girl.” He said to a now shocked Rarity.

“You Miss Rarity, are a kind giving, mare that will make a stallion very happy when you find the one, you two will grow old and die together. Don’t pick a broken monster like me.” She was about to argue when he put a finger to her lips.

“I can’t give you children and I’ll outlive you by centuries.” Rising he kindly patted her on the cheek. “You find your prince sweetheart.” He said, looking over at Spike with a smile on his face.

Rarity now had tears in her eyes and Forge turned around to leave. The worst part about that was that he was right. Shaking away her tears she smiled up at Forge, who turned back and smiled at her, with that smile she knew that she had someone that would always be there for her.

Rushing over to him Rarity wrapped him into a tight hug, Forge hugging her back….

Elsewhere…

“They killed my sons?”

Ironheart was kneeling before an absolutely massive goblin. The said goblin was calmly on a throne that was flanked by guards on either side. Upon his head was a crown that might have been taken by a diamond dog or griffin lord.

At no less than 20 feet tall Ironheart was kneeling before the king of the goblins Golblac “The King Killer”. The king had calmly listened as Ironheart told the tale of how his sons, the two chieftains that were killed in the skirmish with the Thanes, were killed.

Which was part of the humans plan, but he wasn’t going to tell him that. Disguising a goblin to look like him had been hard enough, but the next phase of the plan was going to be way harder, getting through to this….thing.

Even though it held a image of majesty and power, this goblin king was like his forefathers, all of them hiding from the Celestial sisters. They turned from great warriors and raiders to beast that hid underground to stay hidden the cowards

It had taken all of his skill to get this goblin to break with tradition, to get him to go above ground to attack and pillage like in the days of old.

“Yes my lord.” Looking up at the king Iron couldn’t help but notice how unsettling the goblins eyes were, just two pale blue eyes that hardly seemed to blink stared down at him. If the king was upset that his sons were dead he gave no sign of it.

The king looked down at the pitiful creature down at his feet. He knew for a fact that this human probably had a hand in his son’s deaths. While his death would amuse him the human did have a good plan, decides, he had many more sons.

“Alright human you’ll have your army, this slight can’t go unpunished.”

The now pleased human rose. He had just gotten an army of easily a million soldiers. “You won’t regret this my lord, Equestria will burn.”

The king gave him the barest of smiles. “Yes. Yes It will.”

Author's Note

My brother told me if Rarity was hurt he'd burn by house down, I was inclined to believe he would do it because he had a lighter and a can of gas in his hand, sooo.... Rarity's fine.....

And Fair warning, since School's just around the corner the chapters are going to be slower, maybe once a month.