Legion's Plague

The tank stopped short of a crystal gate that looked as though weather and war had tore it down. Beyond that was a palace consisting of dark purple--almost black--crystals sitting in the center of the town. Irregular, sinister structures jutted out in unusual places throughout the entire landscape but were noticeably larger as they got closer to the castle. Houses made of varying colors of crystal looked as though they'd been turned into jailhouses, judging from bars having been implanted in the windows. Other houses lay in shambles of their former glory.

Anna sat on the tank, her hooves freezing and demanding warmth as she eyed the landscape. In the distance, quadruped, erratic shapes lumbered their way through the town and had what looked like chained beings shambling in single file behind them.

Beings shaped oddly like ponies.

Her ears twitched as the frost continually nipped at them. She heard sounds that were barely discernible from the raging blizzard happening all around her. Sounds of moaning, groaning, whining, crying.

And then, something clicked in her head. "Rainbow, Lance, get out pronto. We have a problem." She yelled, peering down into the hatch. Instantly, both climbed out and sat on the top of the tank as well.

"What exactly is the issue at hand?" Lance asked, ears twitching. He strained his eyes to see past the blizzard. He saw glimpses of the shambling silhouettes. And then, he too heard their cries.

"Oh no..." Rainbow groaned as if finally catching on to what Anna meant. The archer only nodded once.

Lance's eyes went wide, but only briefly. He shook his head. "You serious?" He asked, glancing at the archer. Anna nodded yet again. Everyone got off the tank and walked past the war torn gate. Looking around to ensure that nothing would ambush them, they ran along the snow-laden streets with haste toward the palace in the distance.

Suddenly, the sounds of the earth ripping and tearing caught everyone's attention and they turned around, skidding to a complete halt in the process. Dark crystals were quickly growing and expanding in such a way the gate and access to the Valkyrie were cut off. The damn things were growing like weeds and soon all light from the skies above was extinguished.

"Not good....gimme a sec." Anna sighed in annoyance, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Even with her keen sight, she couldn't discern a single shape beyond the radius of herself and the other two stooges who went with. She sighed and closed her eyes to calm herself and think a little bit clearer. Her horn began sparking once more as she stood there, seemingly lost in thought (or, as Lance was more prone to calling it, the deep, vast jungle of a woman's mind.) It kept giving off miniscule flickers that briefly illuminated a bit of her own form. The dancing sparks glowed brighter and lasted longer as she stood there doing nothing else.

And then, her eyes opened and her horn was now glowing a very bright white-green. Now the houses and everything else were discernible from the darkness, but only to a given radius. She looked at Lance and poked her head with her index finger as if to say "At least I came up with a genius idea for the time being." Lance simply smiled back.

"At least we won't freeze to death." Rainbow chimed in, flapping her wings a bit. She was right, because the wall basically blocked the snowstorm and made things a lot more bearable.

"True that." Anna said, glancing around her surroundings and, in effect, causing shadows and crystalline shimmers to dance about as she moved her head.

"I wish I had a horn." Lance sighed, very clearly envious.

"And I wish I had wings." Anna quickly retorted with a smile.

The ground started to shake as if a monster was approaching. The melting snow blanket cushioned this phenomenon so that the group wouldn't fall on their rumps.

"Guys, I think we got company!" Rainbow exclaimed as a figure was hastily scurrying around the bare perimeter of the light's radius. What could be seen of the thing was that its body was made of stone.

The snow-laden ground continued to shake and vibrate. "Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Anna replied, struggling to keep the thing in her light so she'd see it.

Suddenly, the thing charged headlong into the party. Thanks to sheer reflex, Rainbow and Lance were now airborne. Anna merely jumped out of the way right as a stony mace whose spikes were black crystals hit where she originally stood. It then retracting, giving Anna a full view of its owner: A quadruped beast of stone whose eyes, teeth, and claws were made entirely of dark crystals. It had a small, semi-trapezoid-like head, a big, semi-circular body, gargantuan forelegs that seemed to be carved into squares, and slim hind legs made of round rocks. On its backside was a singular crystal mass in the shape of a unicorn stallion in armor raised on his hind legs, as if about to stomp and crush all opposition with his hooves.

"Holy shit...." Lance said, awed by the sight of the behemoth as he drew his gunblade. "The Arch-Vile was busy."

"Very!" Anna replied, loading her bow and taking aim. She shot an arrow at the beast, hoping to hit it in the eye. The arrow was swiftly grabbed by the maw of the thing mid-flight and promptly snapped in two.

"It eats arrows for breakfast?!" Cried the Nazi as he loaded six bullets into his gunblade. He quickly fired one right after another until all six were rushing towards the monster at the speed of sound. Again, the bullets were taken out of the air and eaten.

"It's a hungry, hungry hippo made of stones!" Rainbow frantically shrieked while face-hoofing.

Anna face-palmed and groaned. She then grabbed her bow with both hands and impaled its bottom into the ground while her horn glowed a vibrant evergreen color. Thorned vines quickly grabbed and overtook the Dark Crystal Golem, causing the monstrosity to make a sound that could only be assumed was a sound of surprise. Its eyes then emanated wisps of purple shadows and so did the eyes of the unicorn statue on its back. The vines became crystallized and easily broke away as the behemoth reared on its stubby hind legs and pounded the ground thrice with its claws in a very quick, fluent motion that shouldn't have been possible of a creature of its bulk and size. Three Dark Bits--floating rocks with dark crystals growing out of them--soon appeared to aid their ally.

"This isn't good!" Lance cried as he landed on the ground.

"How do we beat this thing?!" Rainbow yelped as she was flying away from the Bits. Some were gaining ground, only to be dodged and find themselves exploding upon impact with a wall like the kamikaze of World War II. One managed to catch the pegasus off-guard and coerce her into a crash landing. She felt a stinging sensation in her hoof and scrunched her eyes shut in pain because she landed on her head. More Bits were forcing Lance into flight yet again and he was circling the current battle zone because of it. Even more Bits threw Anna's aim off like no tomorrow--it was straight up chaos.

Rainbow groaned in pain and opened her eyes, seeing a thing on a curved hook impaled just above her hoof. It...looked slender and red with a blue, crystalline tip at the end, and it seemed to have a little red bow just under the aforementioned blue bit. Her eyes widened in shock, and then she looked towards a hole the Bits had made when they exploded rather violently. She flapped her wings and launched towards the hole, leaving Lance and Anna behind.

"Dammit! Where's she going?!" The Nazi yelled in annoyance while gunning down Bits.

"I think she found something--but what that is, I don't know!" Anna replied as she kept deflecting more Bits with her bow. Her horn was sizzling out already, and that sure as hell wasn't a good sign. She had no choice but to run at this point, but she couldn't flee from the fight at the same time. Oh no, she had to keep her promise to the Ursa Major. She took out the stone and held it high in the sky. A white glow encompassed the area and said Ursa Major appeared. She started swatting the annoying, troublesome Bits away. Some were sent into walls and others into house--they exploded regardless of where they landed, nonetheless. After that was said and done she raised a mighty paw and slammed it right into the Dark Crystal Golem....five times in total. She then returned to her little stone, which Anna put away in her tail. The beast fell apart, but the crystals didn't shatter. In fact, it simply came back together through some telekinetic force as if it were just being created all over again. It roared, now more pissed than ever as evidenced by the wisps around its eyes intensifying to such a degree that the crystals themselves became blood red.

Suddenly, a massive thunderbolt hailed down through the holes in the wall and landed right on the horn of the stallion statue. This caused the stone beast to convulse as though it were made of flesh. It howled in pain.

"I do believe I need to kick some ass with magic? I ain't got time to take names, you know!" Called a female's voice from above that soon echoed off the walls. Lance and Anna stopped and glanced around before spotting the holes again. In one of them stood a long-haired figure that was holding some kind of unusual staff in one hand. It stood on what was clearly a set of hooves. In a flash, the being disappeared and then reappeared next to Anna, who nearly fell flat on her ass in shock.

The being wore a red dress that just barely hid her large bust. The detached sleeves reached down to her wrists and long, fiery red hair flowed down all the way to the back of her waist. It was wavy and somewhat curly, and short bangs stopped short of her sapphire blue eyes. A long, light grey horn was on her forehead, and it crackled with golden electric sparks. Her legs, ending in hooves, were light grey, and pony ears the same color were in the right places on her head. In her hand she held a red staff whose top ended and curled in a flame-like pattern. A fiery red tail's tip was poking out from under the dress and behind her legs. Dark red roses hanging on ribbons were in her hair just above her ears, and this woman looked super-mega pissed off. A golden aura encased her form and four wings of the same arcane energy--two wings larger than the other--sprouted from her back.

The beast roared its final death throes as the entire town and dark crystalline wall were encased in a bright, white light.