Yoneko appeared in a flash of light near the town hall, rain pelting upon her as soon as she did. She cared little for the rain, though. A few royal guards of the unicorn variety rushed past her down the street, seemingly oblivious to her standing there. Like the rain, she paid them no heed.

A few moments passed, the rain providing the only sound she could hear for the time being. Hooves beating frantically in the mud echoed in the distance, and she twitched her ears in anticipation.

The guards that passed her earlier returned, stopping in their tracks feet from her. They gawked at her form.

Behind them, the six ponies she’d been ordered to kill, also gawking at her.

“What...happened to her…?” Tenmei asked, eyes wide at the sight.

Yoneko’s horn crackled to life again, and with one swift motion of her magic, she pushed the guards aside. She let off a low, almost beast-like growl at the six intended targets, scraping some mud with her clawed foreleg like a bull.

“Someone’s pissed.” Nagare remarked, rising up on his hind legs to wield his sword in his front ones.

Koto readied her boomerang in her magic. “No shit, Sherlock.” She murmured, noticing her weapon glow faintly.

Yoneko took a trot forward, horn still glowing. A bright crimson blaze circled the metallic, pointy frame, steam radiating as a result from contact with the still-falling rain. “You will burn.” She hissed, her voice hoarse and almost forcing an underlying growl in her words. Thunder roared, its voice shaking the ground again, as lightning streaked across the sky in wicked arcs.

Raki’s horn began flaring up in magic. She took a step before the group. “Not if I have something to say about that, sister.” She growled.

Yoneko spread her wings, prying loose the metallic feathers from their frames with her magic to reveal that they were in fact swords an aged bronze in color, complete with hilt and handguards. There were a total of twenty-two blades, eleven for each wing alone.

“Fucking hell! We’ve a one-mare-army here!” Tenmei wailed, pointing the hoof with the crossbow strapped to it accusingly at the alicorn.

“More weapons than an armory too.” Yuuki murmured, flapping her wings and lifting herself inches from the ground.

The swords spun in a circle before the alicorn, moving so fast they looked as though they had been one entity. When the spinning slowed so that the makeshift circle no longer blurred, there was indeed just a single sword.

“Neat trick she pulled, I’ll admit.” Nagare murmured, clutching his sword tightly. “Methinks it’s an intimidation tactic.”

Koto threw her boomerang at the alicorn, the weapon growing five times its normal size. She went wide-eyed and slack-jawed upon seeing her weapon suddenly stop. The alicorn’s metallic foreleg was holding it firmly in place, just centimeters from her muzzle as if it were nothing. What's more, the weapon failed to push her back even an inch. The eyes of the other five also went wide, and they too couldn’t help but gawk at the anomaly.

“A pitiful attempt. I saw that coming from three miles away.” Yoneko hissed, rising up onto her hind legs. She used her sword to support herself, the normal hoof pushing down on the weapon to lodge it in the soaked dirt. With all her might, she threw the boomerang straight back at its owner and sent her careening quite a ways back, hitting her in the side as she tried getting away. She smiled as the weapon returned to normal size, and its owner trying to rise from the slippery mud.

“If she just deflected Koto’s attack…” Yuuki trailed off, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, “with one foreleg…”

“Then we’ve got a problem right here.” Rekka finished for the pegasus, holding his cannon with his magic. Before he could even react, Yoneko pulled the sword from the mud with her magic, rushed right up to him and sent him a couple of feet back with just a punch to his chest. He howled as he landed in the mud, a few inches from Koto who had managed to get up.

“Shit! She’s fast!” Tenmei yelled, aiming his crossbow at the alicorn who quickly glanced at him. Next thing he knew, he too had been careening away thanks to a hoof that landed right between his eyes. This shattered his glasses to dust--lens and all. He was also screaming in pain, as some of this dust managed to land in his eyes.

Nagare began flying, rushing towards the alicorn with his blade poised. Yoneko grabbed his weapon with her metallic claws, and proceeded to fire a ball of flame that sent him back, forcing him to release his sword in the process. She fired another ball upon seeing he was still airborne, this one forcing him into the mud as well.

Yoneko tossed the pegasus’s weapon aside like it had been a twig, and then she turned to Yuuki. A sphere of electricity was sent her way, effectively shocking the pegasus with the help of the rain that soaked her and sent her into the mud too. She sent another one to Koto to coerce her back onto the soaked, impromptu battlegrounds, before turning to Raki.

“Fuck! She’s too strong! What do I do?!” The unicorn though, wide eyes and pinprick pupils telling her opponent she was beginning to panic. The alicorn grinned darkly, slowly approaching her whilst spinning her copper blade.

“Your friends are just as pathetic as you.” Yoneko taunted, eyes narrowing to accommodate her devious grin. “And since you turned on Master, I’ll have the pleasure of cutting you to pieces and scattering your corpse’s ashes to the four winds.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it…” A voice groaned. Yoneko paused, glancing around to try and find the source of the voice who had spoken. She found Rekka rising up, one foreleg bent more than the other, his cannon held weakly in his magical grasp. The weapon had enlarged to laser-firing size, and it was already about to open fire.

Yoneko merely continued to grin, horn flashing briefly. A barrier had formed over her just as the laser was released. Said barrier ate up the attack and didn’t crack once.

“Your stupidity astounds me.” The alicorn taunted, staring at the red-maned unicorn who only looked at her with wide eyes and grit teeth. “Perhaps I should kill you first.”

“It looks like the ponies I dragged here need assistance, and that I can provide.” Spoke another voice. Yoneko turned to the town hall and found Discord standing atop the roof, tuft-fingers preparing to snap.

Author's Note

More to come soon, hopefully.

~Dragon