The child's presence was getting stronger as I made my way down the mud laden streets of Sunny Dale. The streets were heavily laden with the destroyed remains of carts and the fallen forms of street lamps, each being a reminder of the atrocity that took place here not more than a few hours ago. I vaulted over the downed poles and carts, not slowing my hastened pace even in the slightest.

Vaulting over a large pile of wood and stone I landed on the other side, though when I landed I slipped on a due covered rock, twisting my ankle in the process. I gave a small yelp of pain from the injury, but kept running, not letting the injury slow me in the least.

As I ran one of the houses ahead of me exploded outward, raining splinters and rock down on the surrounding area. I skidded to a halt and called one of my dual blades to my hands, it was the green one. I twirled it in front of my body, deflecting several of the larger fragments tot the sides, also citing them in half.

Once the rain of debris stopped I was finally able to see the beast that attached me. It was a larger manticore... But it had a rider in it. A large gryphon in leather armor rode atop the great beast, a black leather whip held in its left hand, while a large leather choker was held in its right.

Looking at the beast with less than a favorable expression I called a small shoot to my left hand, it was about the size of a good-sized dagger. Spinning the saber staff in front of me I held the dagger behind me, dropping into the scorpion stance. The creature moved it right paw forward and lumbered forward at incredible speeds. Reacting instantly I flew at the monster as well, not wanting to be caught wanting.

At the last second I vaulted through the air, I came up with my legs above my head and spinning my twin blade below me, deflecting the large beasts scorpion strike. I was able to tear off a large portion of the manticores stinger when it struck at me, though all this did was anger it.

I landed behind the beast and shot towards it's back. Leaping up at the last second I came up and landed upon the twenty some odd foot tall monsters back, planting my feet in its fur. I had landed next to the creatures large insectile tail, to eking my body to the right I gave a baseball bats wing with my, the now half activated, saber staff and lopped it off , just a few feet from the base.

The creature screamed out in pain and rage from the strike, bucking about like a maddened bull in heat. I shoved my small shoot down into its hide to keep myself grounded on its back, and so while I stayed safe, the gryphon was not as lucky. He was thrown off his manticore mount, being tossed to the cobblestone street below. He was then trampled in the manticores pain driven rage.

I gave an almost inaudible grunt as I was unceremoniously slammed into the beast hundreds of times over the next five minutes as it tried to buck me off. Getting frustrated I took my dual blade and activated only one side. I then took the blade and plunged it into the beasts back a few feet farther up, and then pulled out my shoot and did the same thing, plunging it in a few feet in front of my other saber. I repeated this process several times as I slowly tracked my way up the beasts back towards it neck.

After what felt like hours, and several dozen bulldozed buildings later I was able to get to the creatures blubbery neck. Using the force to keep myself adhered to the my current spot, I tore out my blades and forcefully plunged them into the creatures neck, burning two holes into its spine. From there I continued to do this until I had made a perforated line across the area, to which I then shoved my longest blade into the far left hole and drug it across. In doing so I connected all the holes and severed the creatures neck in one swipe, effectively killing the large monster.

The large beast, after several seconds of its muscles misfiring, fell to the ground, dead, bleeding from the large wound I had inflicted on its neck. Realizing that it was finally dead I jumped down and slumped against the beasts still warm hide, taking a short breather from all the fighting I had just endured.

"Ugh... Mental note... Don't tell the magic wielding princess to leave you alone next time... You might need her help..." I sighed and deactivated my green and yellow blades, attaching them to my belt.

After taking a fifteen minute break I got back up off my ass and continued on my way, feeling out the direction I felt the strong life force coming from. All the while I was now having to deal with my now aggravated ankle injury... I had twisted it several times when I had made the crawl across the beasts back... It wasn't a pleasing experience in the slightest let me tell you...

Now, instead of vaulting over the broken carts and bent street lamps I either walked around them, or, crawled over them. It was not a pleasant experience, especially when I got a few glass shards in my hands and knees when I fell through a cart and into a jumble of broken glass.

After having to forcibly remove hundreds of little splinters from my hands and legs I was almost to the point of falling down from blood loss... Having had one of the pieces nick one of my arteries was putting a damper on my situation... Though thankfully I was able to get to my supposed destination with nothing short of a blood drenched cloth keeping me from death.

The hovel before me was one of the few building, save a business, that had a second floor. Though in this buildings case it was more of a loft now... Seeing as the second floor had taken a severe blow and was mostly shoved through the living room area, with bits of the rubble force itself through the street side window. The hovel was just as unassuming as the rest of them; deep brown wood, dark grey stone walls, and yellow straw for the thatching.

Stepping over some fallen planks I made my way for the front door. Standing before it I noticed that the doorway stood just under my solar plexus... Meaning that I would have to crouch down to enter the house. I could not help but think that this hovel should have collapsed long before I had gotten here, seeing as the left side had collapsed in on itself and fallen all over the yard space next to it. So, with that in mind I hoped that I wouldn't there wouldn't be anything behind the door.

Opening the door I found no such thing, it was clear... Save for the broken glass and the light amount if furniture tossed about the clear parts of the foyer. I looked about, checking for threats, and found myself wanting... But what I noticed was that there were only three doorways at the entrance. One for the living room on my right, one for the slightly collapsed kitchen on my left and a hallway to my fore. So, after checking the kitchen, I walked down the hall, making sure to pick up on as many details as possible.

One thing I noticed was the large amount of picture frames that seemed to fill the hall. Each one was picture of a different pony, ranging from brown to green, from grey to yellow, and almost anything in between. I then came across a large family portrait, it was hanging in the center of the hallway, right across from a large bedroom that held a large two pony bed and crib...

The picture held what seemed to be the family of the household. There was a large white stallion; he had blue eyes, a golden mane, and a monocle for a cutie mark. Next was a lithe mare that also had awhile coat; she beheld emerald-green eyes and a dark blue mane... She had a pair of glasses for her cutie mark. Then there were about five young colts and fillies scattered around the hooves of the two stalwart looking parents, none of them beheld a smile, only the look of someone who had lived in a bleak place for far to long.

I then looked back into the bedroom, trying to figure out what had befallen the homes residents. Crouching down next to the fallen crib I found that there was a small puddle of blood on the other side... Along with the remains of a dead baby colt... The shock of seeing something so pure desiccated like that made me cold inside... The baby seemed to have been about six or seven months old... And it had tried to crawl away from whatever it was that had knocked over its crib... And ripped it apart...

The baby had no hind legs to speak of... And there seemed to be a section of unbroken horn left on its head... And the child's throat seemed to be cut wide open, if not torn out completely.

I slumped over, leaning against the large bed and wall to steady myself from the shock... I have seen many horrors in my long life... From the dismemberment of comrades to the dramatic deaths of heroes... Nothing compares to the death of an innocent child... Sitting there I could feel the tears of sorrow and rage cascade down my cheeks as all the hideous acts of intelligent beings came crashing down on me... The death of my family, the destruction of something greater than the GA, the death of my friends... I sobbed and cried about all the death, but mostly for the loss of such a young life as this.

I cleaned the blood off the body of the destroyed toddler and wrapped him in some fine silk covers I had found in the bedroom closet. I sealed over the bleeding veins and arteries... Not wanting to soil his new resting place. I cradled the dead body in my arms, still sobbing softly for his death, even if I did not know him.

I came out of that room changed... I was tired of the darkness that seemed to follow me, I was tired of the death and sacrifice that always heaped itself upon my shoulders... I had had enough, and it was going to change my ways if it meant I would not need to face such needless death and carnage ever again... Though I knew in my heart that it would always follow me, just like the reaper of death, or a lost puppy with rabies.

With vacant eyes I walked down the hallway, nearly taking note of the other bodies that littered the rooms... Fillies and colts, even a mare, could be found among the dead there... But I could still feel the faint touch of life flowing through one of the ponies here, how I knew of this I could not tell, they seemed to have their own feel in the force compared to the gryphons. I came to a stop at one of the closed doors at the end of the hallway, it had hundreds of claw and paw marks on it, all of which created deep furrows in the thick wood door.

Switching my grip on the dead toddler to my left arm, I reached out and turned the knob, not knowing what I would find on the other side.

The door slowly opened, revealing a very grousing sight. There were about five or six gryphon bodies laid out on the floor, each one beaten to death with a ponies hoof. The room itself was sparsely decorated, only having a few torn and desiccated pictures on the walls, there was stable that was now overturned in a corner and several chairs arranged in a defensive perimeter in the same corner. There were several broken spears and swords strewn about the room, each one more beaten and broken than the last. In front of the improvised barrier lay the body of a large white stallion... He had several lacerations and deep gouges running across his body. His throat was ripped out and his left ear was missing... Seeing his broken body made me come back to reality... And to the purpose of why i had come here in the first place.

Standing before the broken stallion I could hear low sobbing coming from the corner, from underneath the broken table. I slowly walked over, passing by the downed stallion and gryphons, and got down on my hands and knees to see what was under the table.

What I found was slightly disconcerting... But rather than crush me... It brought me a ray of hope. There was one of the children from the family picture hiding under the table, crying his eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably. Lifting the table up off the poor foal he screamed slightly and shot all the way into the corner, cowering in fear.

"Thou hast no need to be afraid of Us... Little one... I shalt protect thee from the monsters..." I spoke in a low fatherly tone... The small colt had flinch when I first spoke but had then come to uncover his eyes when he heard I would not harm him.

"Come here...thou dost not need to fear us... We will carry thee to away from this place... Dost thou want that?" I asked the young colt, he looked to be only five or six... To young to have seen what I know he did... The beating and murder of his father... And possibly the rest of his family. The little colt crawled ever so slowly to me, heading my words of comfort, and came to rest at my feet. He looked up at me with blood shot eyes and a snot dripping nose, looking the ever pitiful self that I knew he felt. He saw that I was holding a form in my right arm and somehow knew what it was. I instantly wrapped my left arm around him as he began to cry again, bringing him up against my bare chest, keeping him warm in the cool air.

I could sense that the child was falling into a deep slumber, his crystal and sobs dying out as unconsciousness claimed him. I extended my senses outward from where I stood, seeking out those that would dare harm me or the child, and found nothing of importance, Save the rodents and other small creatures that roam the streets at night.

I turned towards the street and focused a portion of my energy in front of my chest, forming it into a ball of super kinetic energy. I moulded it p, shaped it, and sculpted it into a cyclone of devastating power. I then pushed, right at the center, forming a directional system from within it, and sent it flying through the house, tearing everything down and sending it all away from us, clearing my path to stand tall and walk away unscathed.

Perspective change: Aurora Steelwing

As I stood at the edge of the town I could feel the tension in the air... I knew my ex comrades were dying... It was not an all to unpleasant feeling to know those traitors were getting their just deserts... I stood there with the red blade glowing against the gloom of the mid morning light, from both the moon and the far approaching sun. During my time keeping watch over the area several of my old comrades had tried to cut me down, but with this reapers blade I dealt with their inept sword skills with ease, laying waste to their numbers.

Speaking of the devil, five of their number came rushing out of the township at horrifying speed, arms raised and shields barred against me. The first one I knocked back with a spinning kick to the head, knocking his helmet off and disorienting him. The next I slew with a downward slash across his head and chest, bisecting his skull and leaving a deep furrow in his chest. His body slumped to the ground in a heap. One of the other three still standing slashed me across my back, making me drop down to all fours, though his strike did save me from a decapitating blow I would have received otherwise. Anger coursed through my veins and allowed me to overcome the pain and stab one of the men through his ribcage, piecing several of his internal organs and cooking the rest of them.

I then punched him off the blade and slashed sideways into another one of my attackers, embedding the blade in his side, the gryphon fell back and took the blade out of my hands with his sudden movements. The fifth, and last, gryphon tacked me and jabbed the blade through my left wing, pinning me to the ground. He then took the red glowing blade out of his ally and held it, two handed style, over my head like an executioner.

Right as he was going to bring it down on my neck though... A large blast of golden magic knocked him away, slamming him into one of the village hovels not fifty feet away from my position, saving my life.

Ripping the blade out of my now immobile wing I looked back and almost fainted from what I saw.

There stood two of the most gorgeous creatures I had ever seen, one was a deep midnight blue with an almost sky blue mane and tail, deep teal yes that could penetrate the soul. The second was an alabaster white with a pastel rainbow main consisting of green pink and blue... It looked rather like a flat color, not as shiny or majestic as the blue creatures, but it also had the most motherly looking eyes I had ever seen, they were a deep magenta in color and were magnificent to look at. Both creatures had a print on their rears, the blue one had a print of the moon in an inky night, and the other had print of the sun on a clear day.

Surrounding them were about five hundred guards in golden bronze armor, each one holding a pike under their arms or a sword in their mouths. All of them we're staring at me with either confusion and hesitance, or hate and alarm.

Knowing that these much bigger creatures had to be their ruler I did not know what I could do to save myself from their wrath. So I did the next best thing, I lowered my arms and bowed to them, knowing that showing supplication might be the only way out of this mess.

"Creature! What art thou! Tell us, and we may not harm thee to greatly for thy atrocities thou hast poured upon our land!" The taller, white one, spoke out in a tongue I could not comprehend, not unless I somehow learned it... Which I doubted would ever happen, seeing as I could not answer them their question. So instead I bowed further, hoping that they would understand the universal symbol of supplicaence among predators.

"If thou shalt not speak, then thou shalt be dealt with immediately as an enemy of the state!" The white creature spoke again, still with me unable to answer them. That is until a booming voice reached across the space, stifling even the air itself in anticipation.

"THOU DARE STRIKE DOWN ONE THAT WOULD PUT THEIR LIFE ON THE LINE FIR ONE OF THINE SUBJECTS!? FOR SHAME!" The creature from earlier stood at the edge of the town, holding two bundles in his arms. He was covered from top to bottom in cuts and gashes, I could even make out large pieces of glass jutting out of his arms and back, even at this distance. Even with my eagle like vision I had some trouble seeing some of his features... It was almost as like a blanket of fog had built itself up around him... Or was even flowing off his body. It was among the strangest things I had ever seen... But with my injuries I knew I would be safer next to him, even with his injuries. So I started crawling over to him while everyone else was busy staring at his grizzlies appearance.

Perspective change: Darth Corpus

I came walking out of the township, my wounds having all reopened and bleeding. I could see Aurora fighting off a few diehard gryphon fighters, and holding her own. That is until one of them pinned her to the ground and was about to execute her... at that I was about to blast the poor bastard with a shot of lightning, that is until a blast of gold energy lanced out of the dense fog that had encircled the town, nailing the gryphon right in the chest, sending him flying. He landed not ten feet from me, a large portion of his chest singed and slightly caved in. I mentally called my blade from his corpse and levitated it back onto my belt, clipping it in place.

After that I could hear the regal voice of Luna's sister, Princess Celestia, ruler of the day and mover of the sun. The sun diarch was yelling at Aurora, telling her to explain herself or that she would be beaten and killed for her crimes... Something that I would never allow to happen, especially to someone who had chosen me over their allies.

"THOU DARE STRIKE DOWN ONE THAT WOULD PUT THEIR LIFE ON THE LINE FIR ONE OF THINE SUBJECTS!? FOR SHAME!" I yelled out, making them all pause in their slow advance on my erstwhile friend and comrade. The five hundred strong guardsmen stared at me with little more than self-restrained horror, fear, hatred, and confusion, upon seeing me. Something I took as a good sign, seeing as it allowed Aurora to crawl her way over to me, it took her a good two minutes of stumbling and cursing under her breath, but she made it, falling at my feet.

Looking at the diarchy of Equestria I could see two different things going on. Luna, whom I would call a friend most dear, was shaking... Tears and soft sobs could be heard coming from her as she looked upon my ragged form. She was wearing some of the most spectacular armor I had ever seen; it swooped across her back and flanks, giving her a sleeker build than ever thought possible, her helm was form fitting and beheld two swooped wings on the sides to protect her ears from a swift cut, seeing as they stuck out of her helm. She was reached in Mithrill chain mail and had a spectacularly adorned great sword strapped to her right flank, it was about as long as I was tall... Dragging slightly on the ground behind her.

Celestia on the other hand, wore a golden set of heavy plate and mail; it also had swooped wings on the helm, for The same reason as Luna's. But she also had a large red cape draped across her back, it had a large emblem of a sun and moon in the fashion of a yin-yang symbol... Something that struck a chord within me, and not in a good way mind you. And instead of a great sword like Luna's, Celestia beheld a large battle-axe across her back, which struck me as odd, seeing as her sister was the one that seemed to have a penchant for battle, and not her.

"Tell us nave, who art thou... To have the manners to question the diarchy of the Moon and Sun... In our own lands no less..." Celestia called out to me, demanding no less, of the man who saved one of her subjects from further harm.

"We... We art given this right when we became a King, for only a being of power can ask another... Why?" I asked calmly, using the force to project my voice at a normal tone across the large distance. I knew that Celestia would be confused with my answer, not having heard of me, but Luna... She would know, and she would have said such... Had her sister not been so blind.

"Guards... Seize the creature... He is of importance to finding out what hast happened to the town of Sunny Dale." I cringed, knowing that I would have to fight for my right to talk... seeing as Luna was now shell-shocked by her sisters abruptness. I turned to Aurora and caught her attention.

"Aurora... We must ask of thee to take these children and watch over them... I must fight for our freedom now..."She nodded her head solemnly and took the dead and dying children, not knowing what she was holding, seeing as I had wrapped the colt in the remnants of my tunic. All the guards and Celestia gave me an astonished look when I spoke in the avian language, each of them trying to figure out how the chirps and other noises had come from my lips. I dropped all my sabers to the ground, unhooking my over belt and letting the large thing crash down with my sabers still attached.

"Princess... How many dost thou think it will take to apprehend me?" I asked, walking out to the middle of the area, being only twenty-five or so feet away.

"It will only take ten... Creature..." She growled out, making both me and Aurora chuckle slightly, she did so with a hint of hysteria coloring her tone.

"Personally... I would say... send out more... But seeing as I am unarmed... It might just be a challenge." I grinned evilly, making Luna bristle slightly as she came back to reality.

"Creature... Might thou give us thine name?" Luna, ever the mindful one, asked with slight apprehension in her tone.

"Very well... We may as well do so... I am Darth Corpus... First and last king of the Demi-Sith Empire... At your service..." I gave theatrical bow, making Luna smirk slightly while she tried to hide her mirth. I rose back up and saw the enraged look on Celestia's face. She then motioned with her hoof, sending the ten guards forward to meet me.

"This will be over in a minute... Just you wait!" I growled out triumphantly. Knowing that the fight to come would be rather amusing to watch, well for me and Luna that is!

Author's Note

I hope you al enjoy this chapter! I just went through and searched out as many misspells and other writing errors as I could... So please let me know if you find any others :D