Chapters

The last thunderbolt
Visions of war
The battle for middle Equestria
The Reunion
EPILOGUE

The last thunderbolt
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The last thunderbolt

Ever since Whitemane made Ponyville his home, he's been having way more fun than ever before in his life, mostly spending time with Rainbowdash. Not even Cheerilee could count the amount of races they've had. Since Whitemane was the only rival for Rainbowdash there was no other pony she enjoyed racing with, and he with her. While racing they talked about a lot of things, and soon afterwards Whitemane knew about everything there was to know about Ponyville. One thing that Rainbow never understood was how a pony so fast has never made a sonic rainboom or something like that...at least that's what Whitemane told her.

For some reason there was one topic Whitemane never really wanted to talk about and tried to avoid- the Wonderbolts. Rainbowdash never really paid much attention to that and mostly was cool with it, but eventually she got tired of it, after all, they were the best flyers in whole of Equestria and Rainbowdash was a real fan of them, and she wasn't really fond of Whitemanes attitude towards them.

One day Rainbowdash decided to bring Whitemane to Cloudsdale and show him around and he didn't turn down the offer. While walking around Cloudsdale Rainbowdash remembered that the Wonderbolts are gonna pass through Cloudsdale in a couple of minutes as they usually do at midday.

***

"Hey Whitemane, how come you never want to talk about the Wonderbolts?" Asked Rainbowdash in a calm voice.

"Coz i don't want to" Quickly replied Whitemane.

"But why?" Asked Rainbowdash, slightly raising her voice.

"Well..." Whitemane paused for a moment to think of a good reply for the curious pony. "Lets just say that i might have done something of which the Wonderbolts might not be to happy about." Said whitemane in a humorous while scratching the back of his head.

"Aha! I knew it!" Shouted Rainbowdash. "I knew there was something more than just a bad mood. You don't want the Wonderbolts to see you, do you?" Asked Rainbowdash with a mad expression while looking right into Whitemanes eyes which were covered by his sunglasses.

Whitemane paused for a very short moment and replied in a calm voice " I guess you could say that".

"Well it's too late now, they're already here" Said Rainbowdash in a loud, excitement filled voice while pointing her hoof up to the air, in the direction from which the Wonderbolts flew in shortly after she finished speaking.

Whitemane barely even understood what she was talking about when the Wonderbolts had already passed by over his head, all he could do is follow them with his eyes and loudly swallow the spit in his mouth.

"Getting a little nervous, aren't we?" Said Rainbowdash in a mocking voice.

"No, of course not. Why would i be nervous?" Asked Whitemane, trying to remain cool.

"Ohh, i don't know, you did say you didn't want them to see you just a second ago, didn't you?" Asked Rainbowdash in a slightly sarcastic voice.

"It's no big deal, it was something that happened a really long time ago, i'm sure they..." Whitemane paused as he saw the leader of the Wonderbolts stop in mid air, leaving her group and gazing right towards him.

"Stormwing? Is that you?" Asked Spitfire so loud that even they could hear it.

"Stormwing? I don't know who that is, but it sure sounds cool. You must have confused Whitemane for some other pony Spitfire." Shouted Rainbowdash back to Spitfire. "Right Whitemane?" asked Rainbowdash turning to Whitemane. "Whitemane?..." Rainbowdash looked around and couldn't find him anywhere. "Where did you go?"

Spitfire noticed Whitemane slipping away but didn't follow him. She flew down to talk to Rainbowdash.

"Did you say his name was... "Whitemane"?"

"Yeah. Why? And who's this Stormwing dude? Rainbowdash raised her voice higher and higher with each question "And why did he leave? Why doesn't he want you to see him?"

"Listen, just help me find him, it's important" Said Spitfire emphasizing the last two words.

"Why? Has he done something bad to you? I'm not selling out a friend, he's a good pony i know him, whatever he did i'm sure he.."

Spitfire interrupted Rainbowdash before she could finish her sentence "He hasn't done anything bad, i just need to talk to him"

"Why? If he hasn't done anything bad than how come he's hiding from you?" Something ain't right here." Rainbowdash noticed Spitifre lowering her head and asked "What's going on?"

Spitfire paused for a bit, as if trying to keep something from Rainbowdash.

"What did he do?" Asked Rainbowdash in a calm voice, but all Spitfire did was turn her head away, so Rainbowdash shouted "Tell me!"

"He saved my life! Happy now?" Said Spitfire in a loud and slightly annoyed voice.

""What?" Asked Rainbowdash in a surprised voice "How? When?..."

"Just take me to him already, will you?!" Shouted Spitfire expressing her unwillingness to answer to her questions and after that calmly adding " I'll explain everything once we find him, ok?"

Rainbowdash calmed her excitement and made a serious look on her face and said "Right! Lets go"

"Thank you" Said Spitfire and followed the ponys lead.

***

While they were talking Whitemane made his way back home and was sitting on the edge of his bed and thinking with a worried look upon his face. It wasn't long before Rainbowdash and Spitfire arrived.

The first one to get there was Spitfire

"Stormwing!" Shouted Spitfire as she flew in through the window and landed on the floor.

"Huh? Oh, damn it! I knew i should have closed the window" Said Whitemane with a grin on his face. "So what now? Have you come to put me behind bars?" Whitemane laughed.

"Heroes don't belong in jail Stormwing." Said Spitfire as if admiring whitemane.

"What hind of hero kills his own team?" I'm a betrayer and a murderer...not a hero" shouted Whiteamne.

"You were the one who got betrayed Stormwing. You did the right thing" Said spitfire in a calm and soothing voice while moving closer to Whitemane.

"Of that i have no doubts" Said Whitemane looking up to Spitfire. "But that does not change the fact that i'm a cold blooded murderer!" Stood up and shouted Whitemane in a voice so furious it made Spitfire back up.

"Stormwing..." Said Spitfire in a sad voice, scared of Whitemane.

"And don't call me that!" Yelled Whitemane, interrupting Spitfires sentence. "Those times are long gone and no one calls me that anymore"

"You're scaring me Storm....i mean... Whitemane. What has happened to you?" Asked Spitfire in a sad and worried voice.

"Nothing." Whitemane paused for a short moment and calmed down "I'm sorry Spitfire...i'm so sorry" Said Whitemane and went back to the edge of his bed, sat down and laid his head low and grabbed with his head with hooves. "It's just that...i...i..." Whitemane couldn't find a word to express what he felt inside of him.

as they went on talking, Rainbows impatience kicked in and she couldn't bare being stuck in a conversation about which she knew nothing about for so long and finally interrupted " Okay, can some pony, PLEASE explain what's going on here?" Rainbow raised her voice and continued " Who got killed? and why? and why do you call him "Stormwing", huh?"

As Rainbow ranted, it seemed like no pony really paid attention to her words, so she Shouted "WELL!?"

"Calm down Rainbow!" yelled Spitfire back to Rainbow. "I'll explain everything." Said Spitfire afterwards, in a quiet voice while walking up to a chair and sitting down.

"Yeah well, you'd better!" Said Rainbow in impatiently and crossed her hooves while standing still and angrily looking at Spitfire. Spitfire was looking at the window so she didn't notice Rainbows angry face.

Whitemane was sitting still and didn't make a sound.

With a grim look upon her face, Spitfire recalled the old memories in her mind. After a short pause she took a deep breath and started slowly retelling the entire story of what happened back then.

Before she actually started the story she asked something to Rainbow "I assume Whitemane hasn't told you about something called "The Thunderbolts"?

"The Thunderbolts?" Asked the confused pony.

"They were a group of fliers just like the Wonderbolts once. The only difference between the two was that instead of a bright spectrum, they left a dark one behind them when flying."

"How come i've never heard of em before?" Asked Rainbowdash, having suspicions of Spitfires words.

"Because they just weren't as popular as us, well duh!" Said Spitfire back to Rainbow in a mocking voice.

"Hmph." Muttered Rainbowdash.

"Khe, khem." Spitfire cleared her throat and continued "As i was saying..The Thunderbolts were a group of fliers very similar to the Wonderbolts. We used to compete against them back in our school days."

"But what does any of this have to do with Whitemane?" Interrupted Rainbow.

"He was one of the fliers in the Thunderbolts, the best flier, might i add." Said Spitfire in a flattering voice while looking upon Whitemane who was still sitting silently.

"Of that i have no doubts." Added Rainbowdash. "From what i've seen, i bet the Thunderbolts would beat you every time if they had Whitemane with them."

"Not exactly..." Said Spitfire in an unsure voice.

"Huh?" Asked Rainbow, confused from Spitfires answer.

"We used to beat them every time we raced, but it definitely wasn't Whitemanes fault. By the way, did i mention that back then he called himself "Stormwing"?" Asked Spitfire to Rainbow, even though she already knew the answer.

"No..." Said Rainbow in a slightly ironic voice. "That explains a lot."

"Yes well, anyways...The reason why the Thunderbolts used to loose every time was because of that terrible team captain they had- "Hurricanetail". His horrible flying strategies downed the entire team!" Said spitfire in a loud voice. "Why, i bet if Stormwing would have lead the team, they would have won leaving us miles behind. Ain't that right Stormwing?" Asked Spitfire, turning to Whitemane again.

"Whatever you say, Spitty." Said Whitemane with a wide smile on his face and laughed.

"I thought i told you never to call me that again!" yelled the annoyed pony.

"Spitty? hehe." Laughed Rainbow.

"We used to give each other nick names back at school" Explained Spitfire.

"Let me guess, his nick name was "Ace"?" Asked Rainbow while smiling and thinking it was very clever.

"How did you know?" Asked Spitfire wondering how the hell could have she known that.

"He told me his nick name back at school was Ace. What i don't get is- How can some pony be so talented at two things at once?" Asked Rainbow turning to Whitemane.

Spitfire also looked upon Whitemane.

"What can i say? I'm a badass, hehe" Said Whitemane with a grin on his face.

"Maybe if you're such a badass then perhaps you would like to continue the story?" Said Spitfire sarcastically.

"Naah, i'm fine with just listening" Said Whitemane just as sarcastically.

"Right, so as i was saying..." Spitfire suddenly widened her eyes and sharply looked upon Whitemane. "Wait a minute...Why so cheerful suddenly?" Asked Spitfire shocked by Whitemanes sudden cheerful attitude.

"Coz i remembered your nick name, ha ha ha!" Said Whitemane and laughed loudly. Rainbowdash joined him and started laughing too. After they stopped laughing, they looked upon Spitfire and saw a furious look upon her eyes.

"He he...right...sorry" Said Whitemane and remained silent.

Spitfire still glanced at Whitemane for a short moment, then calmed her furious look and continued "Right, so as i was saying...The leader of the Thunderbolts was a complete moron and was also impatient, rude and just plain mean. Whenever the Thunderbolts would loose a match would loose a match he would just walk through the halls of the school screaming, kicking everything in his way and pushing every pony that would get in his way aside. God, that pony really had some anger problems!" Said Spitfire in a disgusted voice.

"And what's weird is that despite the countless of looses they suffered, he would never change his strategies or hear any of his teammates opinions. Added Spitfire.

Whitemane interrupted and continued from where Spitfire left the story " He wanted to win so badly, he was willing to sacrifice anything just for one single win. And he knew that if they can't compete against the Wonderbolts then he had to make sure they don't." Said Whitemane, leaving the two ponies confused and looking upon him with wide eyes.

After a short moment of starring at them Whitemane continued "What i mean is- He wanted to make sure that the Wonderbolts wouldn't ever race again...he wanted to get rid of them for good!" Said Whitemane bringing the two ponies out of their trance and drawing their attention.

"He wanted to kill them?!" Asked Rainbow surprised by Whitemanes words, still unable to believe her ears.

"Yes." Answered Whitemane. "He devised a plan to kidnap the entire team while they were getting dressed right before the next race and then bring them over to the Everfree forest all tied up and slowly assassinate them 1 by 1. Unfortunately, the rest of the team was nearly just as desperate as him, and so they agreed. I was the only one who refused to participate in the event. I still recall his anger after i said i wouldn't be a part of his plan."

Whitemane imitated Hurricanetails words "Coward! Traitor! DESERTER! you were never any good to the team! Get out of my sight you pathetic excuse for a towel boy!"

"And so i did. What choice did i have? But i wasn't just going to leave the Wonderbolts for certain death. Luckily i already knew the place and time when they were going to strike. What i didn't know, was that the race was planned a little earlier that day, and so when i tried to find them and warn them it was already too late." Said Whitemane in a voice full of shame.

"It wasn't your fault Whitemane. Stop blaming yourself! You still got there in time didn't you? Said Spitfire, trying to cheer him up.

"So it seems. When i realized that the race was early that day, the Wonderbolts had already been pulled over to the Everfree forest. Without further delay i rushed over to there." Said Whitemane while imitating himself flying.

"And you got there just in time too." continued Spitfire "I remember we were being pulled over unable to see anything because we all had bags on our heads. When we finally got there and they pulled the bags of our heads i was furious.

***

Spitfire retold her emotions back at Everfree forest after the bag got pulled of her head

"Alright, what's the big idea? If this is your idea of a joke then i don't...." Spitfire focused her attention to the captain of the Thunderbolts. "Hurricane? What do you think you're doing? Untie me now!" She yelled at Hurricane.

Spitfire repeated the dialogue she had with Hurricanetail.

"Now, now dearie, don't be to feisty. Wouldn't want you to ruin your precious mane before your surprise now would we?"

"Wh..What surprise?" Nervously asked Spitfire.

Spitfires eyes suddenly were wide open and full of fear as she saw Hurricanetail pull out a sharpened knife and point it towards her neck.

"No! You can't be serious! Not even you would do such a thing!"

"Oh wouldn't i? Would you look at that boys, the captain of the Wonderbolts is teaching me how to live"

The rest of the Thunderbolts laughed in a loud and sinister laugh.

"Now then my dear, where were we?" Said Hurricane turning back to Spitfire and drawing the knife near to her throat.

"HELP!" Desperately shouted Spitfire.

"Shh, no sense in shouting. No one can hear you here" Said Hurricane in a quiet voice. Something suddenly drew his attention away from Spitfire.

(back to the present)

"And that's when Whitemane arrived, storming through the woods...i still remember his shout as if it was just yesterday" Said Spitfire.

(back to the past story)

"I BEG TO DIFFER!" A loud shout echoed through the entire forest. The voice sounded nothing like Whitemane. More like some kind of an angry spirit of the woods. but it was him.

"What the?!" Were the last words of the leader of the Thunderbolts

A black and white colored cone surrounded by lightning stormed through the team of Thunderbolts with unimaginable speed. The entire team got electrocuted and started shaking surrounded by an electric force field. they weren't able to say a word even though they were still alive for a short moment. It wasn't long before they all fell to the ground one at a time and stopped shaking as their souls left their bodies.

(back to the present)

"I saw the entire thing, i was the only one who did since the rest of the Wonderbolts still had bags over their heads" Explained Spitfire "Shortly after, Whitemane came back, pulled a string that was holding the ropes together and we were able to get free. Whitemane looked upon the lifeless bodies of his former team.

Then he looked upon his own hooves and yelled "What have i done?!"

"Even with his sunglasses on it wasn't hard to tell that he was about shed a tear as he realized what he has done."

"He then turned to me and said "I'm sorry" and flew away without even giving me a chance to thank him for saving my life. I thought i'd never see him again, but it seems our paths have crossed once more." Spitfire said happily. Then she walked over to Whitemane grabbed his hooves and looked deep into his eyes as she said the words she had wanted to say for so long "Thank you, Stormwing....you saved the lives of me and my entire team."

Whitemane didn't say a word, he could only glance upon the joyful and ever so excited pony who had tears in her eyes...he just didn't know what to say.

After a short moment Spitfire spoke again "Thank you."

This time Whitemane replied " You're welcome"

They stared at each other until Rainbowdash interrupted them "WOAH!" gasped Rainbowdash "you shocked them to death just by passing through? that's so freaking awesome!...wait a minute...Ha! I knew it! I knew you'd be able to preform something similar to my sonic rainboom...you can do a...erm...an electric cone! Said Rainbow in a voice filled with excitement, as if trying to express her dedication towards the subject.

after a short moment she instantly stopped cheering and added "Wait, a cone? Wasn't there supposed to be an explosion or something?"

"It was...and it's called a sonic electrocosion by the way...at least that's what my brother called it" Said Whitemane suddenly becoming sad again and laying his head down.

"YOUR BROTHER!?" Shouted the two ponies in high voices, astonished by Whitemanes words.

***

"You never told me you had a brother." Said Spitfire.

"Yeah, you'd better start explaining buster!" Added Rainbowdash.

"Yes, i do have a brother" Confessed Whitemane. After taking a deep breath he continues explaining "His name was "Blackmane" we grew up together in a town called "Coltifornia". Our parents died when we were still young, so we grew up together, always looking out for each other." Whitemane smiled as he remembered the days he used to spend with his brother

"We've been through so much together, i still remember him helping me reach the apples from the higher branches of an apple tree, and how i used to help him fly when he had injured his wing. I even remember how we found out what was poison joke. The only difference between me and him was that my mane was white and black and his was black and white, that's the only way some pony could tell us apart. When we found some poison joke, it changed our manes so ponies would always mistakes one of us for the other. We would laugh ever so cheerful when we told the others that they've been mistaking us for the entire day."

As Whitemane finished his sentence he laughed and after a short while he added "Ah, those were the days..."

His cheer soon turned into sadness and sorrow.

Spitfire quickly noticed his grim look and asked "Whitemane?...what's wrong?

"I bet you're wondering, why i never told you about him before, and where is he." Said Whitemane slowly and sadly

The two ponies stood silent as Whitemane was mustering his strenght to tell them the sad truth. It wasn't hard to see by the look on his face that this won't be a story with a happy ending.

"I remember you telling us about how you made your sonic rainboom Rainbowdash...twice, and we saw the rainboom the first time you did it from our town. Ever since that day we've been trying to make one ourselves . My brother was the only one of the two of us who ever did it...very similar like your second time, he made it trying to save a friend from falling to his imminent death, and save him he did, breaking the cone and causing the explosion right in the middle of the town, right before catching his friend."

"I was right there in the town when the explosion happened, i saw it and smiled ever so cheerfully as i saw my brothers proof of success moving towards me. As the explosion engulfed me i thought i would feel like in a warm and rainy day and hear thunder in my ears. Instead i got hit by lightning and electricity ran through my blood, shaking my body.

Whitemane paused for a few seconds as he remembered the horrible event. "Brrr" He started shaking as he recalled the pain he felt back then.

"The pain i felt as my body was shaking, immobilizing me completely...it was unbearable. But somehow i survived it and the electricity left my body and my mane turned whiter and blacker than ever before. I guess there was a bit of lightning in me from my birth, so my body could bare the electricity that struck me."

Whitemanes face suddenly turned so grim and pale as if he was about to die. The two ponies stood with their hoofs over their mouths as they awaited for him to continue.

"What happened then was not meant for any ponys eyes...i thought that the electricity only hit me...damn was i wrong. When the cloud dispersed into thin air i walked across the town in hopes of finding my brother. Suddenly i saw one of my friends collapsing to the ground and shaking as electricity coursed through him. When i walked up i didn't know what had happened to him...i had never seen death before in my life. I kept poking him and jumping around him and yelling "Wake up!" but to no avail."

"As i turned around i saw every pony that i had ever known just laying lifelessly on the ground. I started walking through the town in hopes of finding some pony that could explain to me why was every pony asleep. When i walked through the town i didn't find any pony who could still move and nor did i find my brother. I searched the town again and again, but found nothing except sleeping ponies. I went to the edge of the town once more and looked up to the sky in hopes of seeing any trails of my brother. unfortunately that was the last day i ever saw him"

"I saw nothing...then i started wondering "what if no pony will ever wake up?" I fell down to my knees and then collapsed to the ground and started crying loudly. What else could i do? i was still just a foal...a foal without a family or friends....or any pony."

The two ponies still stood silent. They shared the pain that Whitemane felt in his heart from hearing his grim story but couldn't say a word. It looked like Spitfire wanted to say something but simply couldn't interrupt his story. So Whitemane continued.

"I cried for so long, and no pony would hear my cries...usually when i cried my brother would always walk up to me, raise my chin up and and say "Why are you crying?" And the way he asked it would always make me forget why i was crying and would cheer up instantly. But now there wasn't any pony here who could do that to me."

A spark of hope returned to Whitemanes voice as he went on with his story. "But then as i raised my head and saw something spark up in the sky. The spark was of white and black color, and i knew it could only mean one thing. "Brother!" i said to myself as i started flying towards the direction of the spark, abandoning the only place i've ever called home forever. Right then i only cared about finding my brother. I flied for days, not stopping for anything or any pony, until i finally just ran out of breath and collapsed to the ground unable to move"

"I knew that my end was near and no electricity in my body could save me this time, i only wished i had just slept with the rest of the ponies back at my home. My eyes were already closing by themselves, but then i saw a blurry image of a pony walk up to me. I didn't know who it was, all i saw was a blurry vision, but who ever that was, he saved my life...perhaps it was my brother..who knows."

"I woke up in a town called Mareington and i had no idea how did i get there. But a family there took care of me and raised me as their own child. Soon afterwards i joined a local school and became a part of the Thunderbolts. But i made a promise to myself, never to try anything like what my brother did back in Coltifornia."

Whitemanes story was over and now he spoke to the two ponies that gazed upon him with wide open eyes, even Rainbowdash looked like she was about to shed a tear.

"Now do you see why i was so frustrated? Because i broke a promise to myself when i made that lightning cone...and if i hadn't stopped it in time then the Wonderbolts might have been electrocuted too!" Shouted Whitemane but not stopping his sentence "And why did i never speak about my brother? Because he might not actually even be alive! There! I've said everything! Are you happy now?" in a voice full of anger yelled Whitemane at the two shocked ponies.

Having said everything he's been holding in him, Whitemane sharply stood up from the edge of his bed and slowly walked over to the open window and looked to the sky. "Sometimes i still hope to see a spark in the sky...i know he's out there, i know he's alive...and some day...i'm going to find him." Whitemane lowered his sunglasses and gave a clear look to the sky. It was so long since he's actually looked upon the world without seeing everything half black.

Rainbow and Spitfire looked upon each other as if trying to tell each other to say something to Whitemane with eye contact, but before one of them could say anything, Whitemane said one more thing, which drawed their attention "I bet you're wondering "what's with the sunglasses?" Rainbow and Spitfire looked at each other once more, both wondering whether they should say "yes, kinda" or just wait for Whitemane to tell it anyways. It wasn't long before he did

"I forgot to mention, that after i fainted from trying to catch my brother and something brought me to safety, i woke up with these sunglasses on my eyes. Ever since that day i've been considering them as a gift from my brother and have barely ever taken them off." Said Whitemane putting his sunglasses back on and turning around and giving a short look upon both of the ponies.

After a short moment of looking at each other, one of the two mares finally decided to brake the chain of silence " Wow...you made me regret ever asking about your brother." Said Rainbowdash in a very sad voice so quietly that the other two ponies could barely hear a word she said.

"We're sorry Whitemane. If only we had known, we would never have asked. Such a thing must be really painful to remember." Said Spitfire, hoping that Whitemane would understand her care.

"Was it really that hard to tell by the look upon my face?" Said Whitemane sarcastically, but shortly after changing his accent to a more serious one. "Nevertheless, you couldn't have known, so don't blame yourselves."

"Yeah but..." Rainbowdash tried to say something but got interrupted by Whitemanes loud voice.

"What's said, is said! We shall speak of this no more!" Said Whitemane in a voice worthy of a king.

Whitemanes words nearly made the two mares back up from him, but they stood still. Whitemanes little speech was just what they needed to wake up from their trance of sorrow.

For a moment there, Spitfire did not understand why Whitemane was suddenly so furious, but then she just coped with it and tried to speak on as if though none of this would have happened "So what happens now? Asked spitfire.

"Nothing" Answered Whitemane and went back to his bed, only this time he laid down with both his front and back hoofs crossed. it seemed like he just didn't give a damn about what happens next. "This is the part where we all go our seperate ways. I stay here until a new day dawns, Rainbowdash goes hang out with some other pony for the rest of the day and you go back to your Wonderbolts...i bet they're worried sick about you." Said Whitemane with such an expression on his face that it just wasn't possible if he was happy, sad or just plain cold.

"So we're just gonna leave and pretend like nothing ever happened today?" Asked Rainbowdash, disgusted by Whitemanes careless attitude.

"Yup!" Replied Whitemane in a emotionless voice. "that's what i said."

"But don't you want to at least...." Said Rainbowdash, suddenly interrupted by a loud "Nope" from Whitemane.

"Not even..." And again a loud "Nope" Interrupted Rainbows sentence.

"UGHH!" Grunted Rainbowdash, annoyed by Whitemanes interference on her sentences. "Why won't you listen?" Shouted Rainbowdash angrily looking upon Whitemane and gripping her hooves.

Whitemane got up and sharply answered in a voice just as loud "Why won't i listen? Why won't you listen? There is nothing to talk about, nothing else i can tell you, and nothing you could say that would make me feel better. If you want to stay here until dawn then be my guest, if not then i'd suggest you'd leave!" After he stopped yelling, Whitemane sat on the edge of his bed again and covered his face with his hooves.

Rainbowdash gave one last angry look upon Whitemane and then turned around and started walking towards the window. "Lets just go Spitfire. We're not getting anything out of him...at least not today."

"Wait!" Shouted Whitemane in a stressed voice raising his right hoof up and pointing it towards Rainbowdash.

"I'm...sorry."

"Yeah well, keep your apologies to yourself, me and Spitfire are leaving. Right Spitfire?" Said Rainbowdash turning her eyes to Spitifre who wasn't paying too much attention to her at the moment. "Spitfire?" Asked Rainbowdash after not receiving a reply from the still standing pony.

"Wait Raibowdash. Let him finish" Said Spitfire to Rainbowdash and after that turning to Whitemane "What was that Whitemane?" She asked.

"I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry!" Said Whitemane, with the carelessness having left his voice.

"Yeah well, sorry isn't enough! Lets go Spitfire." Rainbowdash said in a cold voice and started moving towards the window once more.

"Wait Rainbowdash, let him finish." Said Spitfire trying to stop Rainbow from leaving, but to no avail, Rainbow had already left. Spitfire saw Rainbowdash fly away and stared angrily towards the direction she flew off in. Spitfire was about to fly after her, until Whitemane spoke.

"Wait! Let her go. She has every right to be angry." Said Whitemane, drawing Spitfires attention away from the window and towards him.

"That doesn't mean she can't hear you out." Replied Spitfire refusing to approve of Rainbows actions.

"True, but it was still my fault that she even wanted to leave. Clearly Rainbow doesn't wish to speak to me for now, but right now, i'm talking to you." Spitfire was all ears to what Whitemane was about to say. "Can you forgive me for my carelessness?" Asked Whitemane in a voice full or regret.

"Ha!" Loudly laughed Spitfire. "You're asking the person who owns you her life to forgive you about something as unimportant as a simple careless attitude?" Asked Spitfire laughing even more.

"It's still not polite" Said Whitemane with a smile on his face and laughed with Spitfire.

After the two ponies stopped laughing Spitfire asked in a joyful mood "So what now?"

"I don't know" Replied Whitemane also enjoying the conversation.

"I've yet to repay you for saving my life, and i'm not a pony who likes to be in debt." Said Spitfire in a serious but also cheerful accent. "Got any ideas? Anything i could help you with to repay the debt? But please don't make me be your servant or something." Spitfire started shaking. just the thought of such a thing seemed disgusting to her.

"Don't worry" Said Whitemane and laughed "I don't want some pony wearing a dress and following my every footstep, bringing me a bowl of fruits and asking "anything else your highness?" every five minutes" Said Whitemane barely finishing his sentence before laughing out loud for nearly half a minute.

Spitfire also laughed but nowhere near as loud or long as Whitemane did. "Yeah, that would be pretty awkward." Said Spitfire and continued to laugh. When the laughing finally ceased Spitfire asked "So then...got anything particular in mind?"

Whitemane didn't think for long, for he already knew what he wanted "Actually there is one favor i'd like to ask from you"

***

On the next day the Wonderbolts were passing through Cloudsdale as they do every day. Only this time Whitemane was the watching them fly with a very satisfied expression, no longer hiding from them. As the Wonderbolts flew over Whitemanes head one of them left the group, circled through the air a bit and landed next to Whitemane and stared at him with a wide smile and her teeth shinning brightly.

"Still mad at me for yesterdays little incident? Or have you forgiven me? Asked Whitemane in a cheerful mood.

Rainbowdash stuttered for a bit and replied "eerm, I, might or might not have forgiven you." Said Rainbow and looked away from Whitemane, closing her eyes and imitating a careless face, trying to hide her true emotions. She peeked at Whitemane after a second, and he was still smiling. Rainbowdash couldn't hide her true emotions for long and screamed from joy "YES!" Then Rainbowdash jumped at Whitemane and gave him a big hug "Thank you, thank you, thank, you thank you! You're the best"

Rainbows instincts were telling her that she should just let go and act cool as she always did in these kind of situations, coz some pony might be looking at her and that might ruin her reputation. But for the first time in her life, she simply didn't care for reputation. This pony made her lifes dream come true and even wanted every pony to know how much she loved Whitemane for what he did for her. And Whitemane hugged her just as sincere.

Not many ponies noticed the two but there was one who was looking at them from above. "How fares my new Wonderbolt?" Asked Spitfire loud enough to attract the attention of the two ponies. Spitfire giggled as the two ponies smiled back at her. "Hurry up or you'll miss your first flight training Rainbowdash!" Yelled Spitfire but not roughly, more like trying to encourage Rainbowdash to follow her. Spitfire flew off to join back up with her team.

"well, gotta go, hehe." Said Rainbowdash as the two ponies stopped hugging each other.

"Make em proud, my little rainbow!" Said Whitemane raising his hoof and giving a sharp and encouraging look right into Rainbows eyes.

"Yoooouu bet cha!" Said Rainbow, as assured of herself as she's ever been, and flew off to join the Wonderbolts that were nearly out of of Cloudsdale already. she caught up fast enough and laned between Soarin and Spitfire who gladly made room for her and smiled at each other as they pushed on through the sky.

And as the Wonderbolts flew away, Whitemane could only glance and feel happy for Rainbowdash as she dashed through the clouds with her newest friends.

"I know you will Dashie...i know you will."

To be continued....

Visions of war
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The last thunderbolt

Visions of war

Things have been going on quite calmly in Ponyville ever since Rainbowdash joined the Wonderbolts. Due to all her training for the team, she's been spending a lot less time with Whitemane lately, but he didn't seem too bothered about that. Whitemane started spending more time with Fluttershy though, and no one really knew why. What could two such different ponies have in common? wondered the rest of the mane six, not that they were bothered by that, it just seemed awkward to them.

For quite a while, nothing worthy of some ponys attention happened in Ponyville, until one day Whitemane started looking really tired, and even...as if tormented by something. When Twilight asked "what was wrong" he would just say "nothing". The other ponies had nearly forgotten all about it, but it happened again and again, and Whitemane looked worse with each next time. All that the other ponies could get out of him was that he had a bad dream.

Eventually the ponies started becoming suspicious and even nervous of Whitemanes odd behavior and refusal to admit what's wrong. They were going to question him on the next day but when they awaited Whitemane to wake up and come to the center of Ponyville for a talk, Whitemane didn't arrive. They went to his house and didn't find him there either. They searched the entire town and even a little bit of Everfree forest...There was no sight of Whitemane anywhere.

On the night before Whitemanes disappearance he had another one of his so called "bad dreams" that have been tormenting him for quite a while. He'd been seeing weird visions of places he'd never seen before and a sinister voice telling him to follow, but he didn't even know which way to go, until that one night, when the voice screamed "To the west!" right before his dream ended, and so he set forth to the west, in hopes of finding an answer to his weird dreams.

***

Whitemane didn't pack anything since he relied on the journey to be short. He flew fast, hoping to shorten the journey even more. He flew and he flew, seeing some of the places he'd seen in his dreams along the way, but not nearing his goal. At the end of his dreams he would always see some kind of meteor land and make a giant hole in the ground. That was what he was looking for, but had not found any sings of it so far.

Night time soon came, and Whitemane just found a soft spot on the grass to lay down for the night, but the dreams at this point got so unbearable that he would wake up nearly right after falling asleep every time. Sleeping was impossible, so Whitemane had nothing else to do but to keep on flying forward. Despite the darkness, his speed of flight was still the same, until his strenght started fading. Yet Whitemane pressed on no matter how tired he was.

He just kept on thinking that he would reach his destination soon enough. It wasn't long before he started regretting not packing any food or water with him. He flew for two more days....that's when he realized that there was no going back. Either he finds his destination or at least a sea...river...anything! Even a puddle would do to end his thirst. The journey he made was already too far from Ponyville, and he knew that going back would mean dying of thirst.

It wasn't long before he was completely worn out and couldn't even lift his wings anymore. He started walking and later even crawling and gasping nearly every second. His mouth was as dry as a desert, he even tried to drink his own sweat when he saw some. After half an hour of crawling he saw a ledge and figured that it was the edge of the giant crater from that the meteor had made. He barely had enough strenght left to reach it, and as he did he simply fainted and rolled into the crater.

All Whitemane could do was hope that he would role into water, if not, then.....well, lets just say that he wouldn't need to worry about bad dreams anymore.

On the next day Whitemane woke up in the middle of the crater. Oddly, he felt great, without a sign of thirst, hunger or tiredness, so he stood up and started looking around. Water or food was nowhere to be seen. Whitemane wondered why did he feel so great all of a sudden when he should be happy that he's even still alive. Whitemane dreams seem to have ceased, which led him to believe that he's reached his destination.

It was a really massive pit in the ground, but it didn't look like it was caused by a meteor, cause there were no bits of it to be seen, there was only brown ground everywhere...well, almost everywhere at least. Whitemane set his sights on some kind of giant square shaped piece of obsidian. It had an opening at it's bottom the shape of a door. What's weird is that there was nothing behind it, the door didn't lead anywhere since there was a wall behind it.

Irritated by the fact that he's traveled all this way, Whitemane said out loudly "This is it? All these sleepless nights and this tiresome journey just to see some giant door with a mountain in front of it? ARE YOU F***ING kidding me?!" Shouted Whitemane, outraged by the fact that the one who was sending him these visions was nothing but a troll.

With great fury, Whitemane kicked the obsidian sculpture and hurt his hoof "OUCH! Stupid rock!" Shouted Whitemane and started jumping around in agony. He stopped jumping soon enough. "Great! I'm talking to a rock...might as well name him "Tom" while i'm at it." Said Whitemane sarcastically. Whitemane turned around and was about to fly back to Ponyville when all of a sudden he heard a weird noise coming from the rock. He turned around and saw the entrance of the rock was shinning in purple lights. Whitemane wanted to go closer but suddenly an axe flew out of the doorway right towards Whitemane and he didn't dodge it in time, as it flew right for his face.

"AAAH!" Whitemane woke up screaming. "Huh? Phew...just another dream...or was it?" Whitemane had no idea where he actually was, so he just flew west, and reached the crater in just a few minutes. As Whitemane looked in the crater, he saw the giant rock standing still, with no signs of a portal, or whatever it was opening from it. Whitemane went down, touched the stone and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. After a short while, Whitemane flew back to Ponyville, this time not turning his back on the rock for even a second.

Whitemane kept wondering along the way if he could sleep soundly now. He kept flying and kind of hoping night time would come soon so he would know whether he can sleep again or not, but after a short while Whitemane could already see Ponyville. Surprised by what his eyes were showing him, Whitemane stopped in mid air, took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes thinking that they're fooling him, but they weren't...Ponyville was right in front of him.

"Huh...i could have sworn it was way further when i was flying the other way...what trickery is this?" Asked Whitemane to himself and continued his flight to Ponyville. In less than a minute, Whitemane was already at the first houses of the town and got spotted by one of the ponies searching for him.

The first pony to spot him was Fluttershy, who then yelled from excitement "Whitemane! Girls! I've found him!" She shouted trying to attract the attention of the other nearby ponies.

The rest of the mane six popped their head out of various nearby spots in Ponyville and momenterally rushed over to greet Whitemane. The mane six gathered around Whitemane and started cheering as they all gave him a great bit hug.

"Where have you been?" Asked Twilight, overjoyed by Whitemanes return.

"Yea, what happened? we've been worried sick." Added Fluttershy.

"Hehe, if only i knew my dear ponies...if only i knew." Replied Whitemane in a bright attitude.

The ponies all widened their eyes and gave a confused look upon Whitemane. "What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Rainbowdash.

"It simply means that i don't exactly know where i've been." Replied Whitemane.

Whitemanes sentence made the ponies even more confused. "HOW can you not know where have you been?" Asked Twilight.

"He looks really tired, i think he doesn't even know what he's talking about right now. I think we should let him rest for a bit" Said Fluttershy, worried about Whitemane.

"You have no idea....there's nothing i'd like more right now than a good nights sleep" Said Whitemane and yawned.

"Alright...but you'd better be ready to explain what happened to you on the next day." Said Twilight.

"Sound good" Replied Whitemane and started heading over to his house.

"And don't even think about running off again!" Yelled Rainbow.

"Don't worry, i won't." Yelled Whitemane back to Rainbow as he walked off. Whitemane was sound asleep already In less than an hour.

***

Whitemane slept soundly that night, no visions were torturing his dreams that night. A new day dawned and Whitemane was awoken by a sound of breaking glass. Shocked by the loud noise, he turned around to see what could have caused it. What Whitemane saw then made him think he was dreaming again. He saw the same axe that flew out of the portal in one of his previous visions. The axe was stuck in the inner wall of his house and it must have been what broke his window.

Whitemane got up to get closer to the axe to see if it's real, but a scream coming from outside attracted his attention. He walked over to the window and saw something worthy of nightmares. Whitemane started backing off from the window in fear as he saw the entire town of Ponyville bursting in flames. Pegasi were flying around trying to exhaust the flames that had caught their wings. They either didn't make it in time and burned down and fell to the ground or were shot down with arrows coming from somewhere that Whitemane couldn't spot.

Whitemane got close to the window and saw the streets of Ponyville full of dark sinister creatures in black armor, armed to the teeth with giant axes and bows. These things were unlike anything anypony had ever seen before. At first Whitemane thought that they were walking on their legs but then saw that they were more like levitating, coz instead of legs there was some kind of black mass poping out of the parts where their armor was being tied together, and Whitemane didn't see any connection they made with their legs to the ground. Their torso seemed to be unarmored for some reason, and it resembled the torso of a human.

The torso looked different for each of the beings, as if they had each stolen a part of a human body for themselves and added it to the black mass that their own body consisted of. Their heads were covered in black metal helmets with long horns on their edges. Their eyes were blood red and their teeth couldn't be seen.

What were these creatures and where did they come from Whitemane had no idea. Then an idea hit his brain, and he immediately left Ponyville in order to look for the crater he saw in his previous visions. As he flew over to it he saw a horde of the creatures moving to Ponyville from the direction of the crater. He was flying over the could so he wouldn't be spotted. When he reached the crater he realized that his fears were true. The dark creatures were coming from the portal.

Tears started falling flowing from his eyes as he finally realized that the visions were a warning that he did not listen to.

"This was all my fault" Said Whitemane to himself in a desperate voice. "Forgive me Ponyville....i have failed you".

But no matter how desperate the situation seemed, Whitemane wasn't one for giving up, so he flew back to Ponyville as fast as he could to look for anypony that he could still save. As he flew through the flaming streets of the town, more and more pegasi passed by him, nearly setting him on fire while trying to put their own flames out. One of the pegasi ran right on him and they both collapsed to the ground. The other pegasus seemed to have fainted, but Whitemane was still awake, but couldn't get up, coz the other pegasus had landed right on his wing and nearly broke it.

Whitemane was alright but couldn't get up just yet because of the fall, he pushed the pegasus off his wing and turned around and saw another pegasus sitting in mid air trying to put out the flames on her wings. She succeeded, in exhausting the flames and started cheering despite all that's going on. Whitemane couldn't see who that was so he started slowly crawling towards the direction of her. As he got closer something drew his attention away from her.

It was one of the creatures, he had been tied to the ground by the rubble of one of the buildings. The creature didn't try to escape, instead it reached for it's bow and drew an arrow it and pointed it toward the pegasus in the air. As he was readying to launch the arrow, Whitemane turned back to the pegasus trying to warn her. He shouted to her but she didn't hear him, so Whitemane kept crawling and shouting as loud as he could. when he finally got close to the pegasus he recognized her, right as the creature launched the arrow that pierced her torso.

Whitemane was right under the pegasus when the arrow reached her. His mouth was wide open and his eyes filled with fear and sorrow as he felt Rainbow's blood dripping onto his face. Rainbow touched the part of her body where the arrow had pierced her, lifted up her hoof and saw blood all over it as she lifted the hoof to her face.

The creature let out a sinister, mocking laugh before it fainted, Whitemane saw the creature pass away, after that looking up to the sky once more, just to see Rainbowdash collapsing right onto his face. Whitemane couldn't move and nor did he want to. He had lost all that was left of his hope. Tears started flooding from his eyes as he saw the dead Rainbowdash laying on his body. He turned his head to the left and saw something that seemed to be the leader of the creatures walking towards him. This creature didn't look much different from the others, it was his axe that made Whitemane sure it was him.

As the creature approached him, he laughed in a loud sinister voice, and spoke to Whitemane "Did you trully think that you could escape ME? And where would you go? do you think that i only came here for one mere town? Hahahaha, I've conquered continents, worlds and universes with my army of darkness, and Equestria will be turned into a pile of ashes in just a few days as well."

As the creature finished it's sentence it lifted it's axe over it's head, ready to cut Whitemane in half, but Whitemane had no fear in his eyes as he awaited his death. with his last breath he whispered "Bring it you bastard! If i'm going down, then i'm going down laughing instead of giving you the pleasure of seeing me scream in terror, hahaha!" laughed Whitemane "Mors principium est!" He added something in latin that the creature couldn't understand.

Whitemanes mocking attitude left the creature in confusion for a moment, but soon he came to his senses and shouted "No one escapes my wrath you pathetic creature, for i am The Legionnaire!"

And with those words he swung his axe down towards Whitemanes face.

***

Just when Whitemane had lost what was left of his hope for anypony to survive, he woke up screaming, and realized that it was just another vision. This vision was more then enough this time for him to know what he had to do. Whitemane woke up in a field of grass near the crater. He flew over the pit and saw the portal still closed. He sighed as he realized that there is still time for him to warn everypony of the upcoming disaster.

He flew back to Ponyville as fast as he could, and as he arrived, everything happened just as it did in his vision before. The first pony to spot him was Fluttershy, who then called the others and the mane 6 was soon all around him, cheering for his return and asking the same questions as before, until they noticed that Whitemanes head was still hanging down and he didn't breathe a word. Whitemane stood like a scarecrow there for minutes until one of the ponies finally decided to ask.

The pony knew that what ever it is that's bothering Whitemane, can't be good. Rainbowdash mustered her strenght and finally asked. "Whitemane....what's wrong?"

Whitemane still stood silently for a moment and then raised his head up with a grim look upon his face and turned towards Rainbowdash, it looked like he was ready to collapse, and that the mane six were the only one holding him from falling. After a brief moment, Whitemane finally spoke in a quiet voice, that seemed to be carrying a message about the end of Equestria in it.

"......I brought guests.........".

To be continued......

The battle for middle Equestria
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The last thunderbolt

The battle for middle Equestria

Whitemane told everything he knew to the ponies. They were shocked and confused and at first didn't believe what he said was true but eventually Whitemane managed to convince them of the upcoming danger. It wasn't long before the ponies made their way to the town mayor to explain the situation, and as they did, one by one the entire populace of the town gathered around to see what was going on. Convicing the mayor turned out to be a lot harder than convincing the mane 6.

"You must understand, Equestria is in danger, THIS IS NO JOKE!" Shouted Whitemane, trying to reason with the mayor.

"And why should i believe YOU?" Asked the mayor, unconvinced of Whitemanes words.

"The real question is not whether you can believe me or not, but whether you can afford to not believe me if what i'm telling is true."

Whitemanes words finally seemed to be sinking in to the mayors mind, for a moment she stood there thinking and not breathing a word. Then Whitemane continued.

"Look at this town, these ponies are your responsibility, they trust you with their lives and it is your duty to keep them safe....do not let them down."

The surrounding ponies were talking to each other, some of them believed Whitemane, some of them didn't, and some just didn't know what was going on.

"Alright, assuming that what you're saying is true...what would you have us do? Do we run? Where would you have us go?" Asked the mayor silencing up the gossip going on in the crowd and direction everyponys attention to Whitemane.

"No. These things will stop at nothing to wipe us all out, no clouds, trees or even the underground can protect us from their wrath....We must fight back, and protect that which we hold dear!" Said Whitemane in a loud voice, leaving some of the ponies scared of what will become of them. Many of the surrounding ponies had never seen violence in their lives...and now death itself is drawing close to their friendly town.

"Fight back?" Asked the mayor "With what? We have no weapons."

"Then we must make weapons"

"We have no allies"

"Then we must make allies"

"WE HAVE NOTHING!"

"....We have magic."

"HA!" Laughed the mayor. "What can our magic do against their armor. If they are truly as powerful as you described then our magic would only be good for bringing out a red carpet and showering them with flowers as we let them take our town." Said the mayor sarcastically.

"Our magic is more powerful than you might know, our will is strong, and we have harmony and friendship to help us." Whitemane tried to reason with the mayor once more.

"HA! Friendship? Harmony? We are not here to make friends with them Mr. Whitemane." The mayor laughed.

"And what would you have us do?!" Shouted Whitemane in a fierce voice, leaving the mayor with her eyes wide open and the crowd gazing at him. "Huh? What are you suggesting? Do you want to just give up? Just let them march in here without a fight and slaughter everyponys children and leave the town defenseless? Yes, i know the situation sounds desperate but there is always hope...it's only desperate if we let them win."

Whitemanes speech inspired some of the ponies, but most were still too scared of the upcoming horrors, or just plain confused. Nopony knew what would become of their precious town, they knew they couldn't run but kept their ears open to hear if Whitemane has a plan on how to stop this.

"The towns safety might be my priority, but i am no warhero" Explained the mayor. "I lack the courage and the strenght to lead my ponies to victory.....would you be willing to lead them, Sir Whitemane...Could you show these ponies hope in a time when there's nothing left but despair?" Asked the mayor, now talking in a voice much more respectful towards Whitemane.

Whitemane paused only for a brief moment, he knew that accepting this role would mean no way back, and that the entire town...no, WHOLE of Equestria would be counting on him, but he also knew that this had to be done, and so he spoke "I am willing to lead....but are you willing to listen?" Asked Whitemane turning around and and reasking the question, to the mayor, the crowd, and the mane 6. "Are you?.........Are you?"

The whole town was concentrating their attention to Whitemane, nopony had the courage to breathe a word right then, coz it would probably mean speaking in the name of the whole town. After a brief moment, the mayor finally spoke.

"It doesn't seem like we have much of a choice Sir Whitemane....I shall do whatever it takes to protect my town....even if it means following your orders."

The crowd of ponies looked upon each other and noded to each and to Whitemane, that way showing their will to cooperate. Whitemane saw everyponys expression and heard shouts coming from the crowd "We will follow you!" "We are with you Whitemane" "Tell us what we need to do!" "YEAH!"

And nopony tried to stop the ones shouting, Whitemane realized that he has secured their support and so he spoke. "Alright then, we've got no time to waste so listen....this is what were gonna do."

***

In just less than half an hour ponies were already running around the town, securing their homes, building barricades in front of the town, sending their children out of the town until the battle is over, closing windows and finishing things they thought had to be done before the battle.

Meanwhile Whitemane was talking to the mane 6 and Spike in the middle of the town.

"Since you are my most trusted ponies and dragon within the town, there's no one else i'd have do this important task for me....Equestrias fate is withing you hooves."

"Khe, khem." Loudly coughed Spike.

"....And claws"

Spike noded in approval.

"Alright then, listen, were not going to win this war without allies, so i've entrusted you in gathering some...this is no easy task, so that's why i've chosen you for it, i know you can do it. Are you up for the task?"

Spike and the ponies noded, and Rainbow added impatiently "Just get on with it already!"

"Right, i have assignments for each of you. First of all" Said Whitemane turning to Twilight. "We need information, Twilight, i know you have all sorts of books in your library. Can you look up something about someone who calls himself "The Legionnaire"?"

"Consider it done." Answered Twilight.

"Good, Second, we need to warn the high queen of what's going on. A letter to Celestia should suffice, i trust you can handle this quite easily Spike." Whitemane said turning to Spike.

"Of course i can! I'll have it done in no time" Said Spike and ran off to Twilights library.

"Glad to see someones so eager to help." Said Whitemane watching the little dragon run off as if he was competing in a race.

"Khe khem" Loudly coughed Rainbow, growing tired of watching Whitemanes eyes following Spike.

"Oh right, where was i....Ah yes! Defenses, i'm pretty sure Pinkie can muster up something interesting to keep the attackers out of our town for a while long. Am i right Pinkie?"

Pinkie giggled. "Of course silly, i got just the trick for these occasions."

"You had something planed in case the town got attacked by a large group of unknown attackers from a different real?!" Asked Rarity, shocked from Pinkies words, to what Pinkie just gave a simple answer. "mhm!" and continued smiling.

"....That's Pinkie Pie for ya." Added Applejack.

"Hehe, i got a feeling i'm going enjoy this."

Rainbow gave an angry look to Whitemane.

"Erm...yeah." stuttered Whitemane. "For the rest of you, i have a lists of allies i have entrusted you to gather. I'll start with the one that's the easiest one to my mind."

"Applejack." Said Whitemane turning to her and handing her a list. "I hope this won't be too much of a problem for you."

Applejack looked at the list and spoke with great confidence. "HA! Piece of cake."

"Excellent, the next task won't be as easy, and i am very sorry i have to hang this burden upon your shoulders Fluttershy." Said Whitemane turning to the shy pony and continuing "But in times like these i just don't have much of a choice."

Said Whitemane sympathetically and handed her the list.

"Fluttershy looked upon the list and gasped "Oh my....i don't know if i...."

"Fluttershy..." Said Whitemane, raising up his shades and looking deep into Fluttershys eyes.

"But i...."

"Please Fluttershy....i'm counting on you....and so are your friends." Said Whitemane, grabbing Fluttershys hooves and bending down, but not breaking eye contact, "Please......"

Fluttershy blushed and looked worried, but found the courage in herself to accept the task. "Um..okay..I'll try my best."

"I know you will, i have faith in you my dearest friend." Said Whitemane and let her hooves go and got up and turned to the next pony.

"Rarity..." Whitemane stuttered for a moment, the task he was about to hand to Rarity was hard even to write down. "I know you won't like this." Said Whitemane.

"What is it my dear?"

"I want you to visit some old....friends."

The expression on Raritys face after seeing the list was beyond priceless, her eyes sprung wide open from shock. "You want me to WHAAAAT?! Oh no no no no no, absolutely not, i will not..."

Whitemane interrupted Raritys refusing. "Rarity, i know this is too much to ask, but i wouldn't ask for this if it weren't so desperate."

"But i....i..." Rarity wanted to refuse so very badly but at the same time some part of her was pushing her to accept. She just didn't know what to say.

"They could prove to be truly powerful allies." Added Whitemane.

"I......i..." Rarity just didn't have the strenght to say yes, but when she saw how seriously and at the same time desperately Whitemane was looking at her, she just use all her power to just push the words out of her throat, through her sealed lips. ".....Fffffiine...."

"You'll do it?" Asked Whitemane, surprised of Raritys answer. He never actually thought that she would accept.

"Yes." Said Rarity with an angry look on her face. "BUT YOU'LL OWE ME BIG TIME FOR THIS!" Fiercely shouted Rarity, jumping towards Whitemane.

Whitemane just laughed of the ponys anger, he was far too cheerful right now to be scared by her. "Haha, whatever you say my queen." Said Whitemane and even bowed before Rarity.

Whitemanes attitude nearly angered Rarity even more, but eventually she calmed down.

Rainbow was getting pissed off meanwhile, watching Whitemane talk to everypony but her. She couldn't take it anymore and yelled at him. "HEY! What about me? I'm here too, remember?! Got something for me too?"

"Indeed." Replied Whitemane. "For you i've prepared a particularly difficult task....two of em, to be exact." Whitemane corrected himself and handed her the list.

Rainbow read the first task. "Huh, this shouldn't be too hard, looks like you've underestimated....wait.." Rainbow turned her attention to the second task. "WHAT? You can't expect me to..." Rainbow started yelling and got interrupted by Whitemane.

"Why do you think i left you for the last? I know this is no easy task, and i have great confidence in you." Explained Whitemane, trying to calm her down.

"But she'll never listen to me..."

"Does this mean you're not up for the task? Have my hopes in you been in vain?

"What?! NO! Of course not, i just...."

"Then what seems to be the problem, i can't see." Said Whitemane with a grin on his face.

"Oh you are sooo..."

"I know."

"Whatever..." Carelessly said Rainbow. "Lets just get this over with already."

"Right then ponies, we've no time to waste, proceed with your tasks, and please make it as quick as you can."

"You bet cha" Said Applejack and ran off.

"Alright." Said Twilight and also left, Rarity went away grunting and mumbling something angrily to herself, and Pinkie Pie just bounced away not saying a thing. The last one to leave was Rainbowdash.

"On it." Said Rainbow and flew off but stopped in mid air after a few seconds. "Huh, wait a minute....What about you? What are you going to do while were working our flanks off for the sake of Equestria? You're not just planing on sitting and watching us sweat, are you?" Asked Rainbow, suspicious of Whitemanes passiveness

"No....i have something special in mind, hehe"

"Whatever, lets hope it's something we can use." Said Rainbow, having doubts of Whitemanes words and flew off.

"Believe me, it is." Said Whitemane to himself.

***

The evening was upon Ponyville, and the day was starting to darken with each passing minute. As the ponies prepared for whatever fate awaits them, Whitemane was consulting Celsetia herself in the town square when the town mayor ran up to them trying to catch her breath. She bowed before Celstia before she spoke.

"Your majesty. Pardon me for interrupting you, but the defenses are ready Sir Whitemane."

"Excellent, that's the first good news i've heard in the last few hours." said Whitemane with a sudden smile on his face that soon faded.

"What of our allies Sir Whitemane? and where the hell are your main agents?" Asked the mayor, she was starting to doubt Whitemanes capability of being a leader of war.

"They should be here any moment." Whitemane noticed Twilight running up to them. "Ah, and there they come. What news have you brought us Twilight? anything good?"

"Not good at all i fear...."Said Twilight in a worried voice.

"I take it you didn't find any information of our attackers then?"

"On the contrary, i found a lot of it, but..."

"But what?" Whitemane didn't like Twilights worried look "Is everything alright Twilight?"

"These things....if they are what looked up in my books then we are in for one hell of a fight....."

"Gulp..." Whitemane chuckled loudly. "One way or another, i need to know everything you have to tell me."

"Sigh" Twilight took a deep breath before starting "the creature that calls himself "The Legionnaire", he is said to command an army of creatures that no one has ever called other than "voidlings"

"Voidlings?" Asked Whitemane and the mayor. Celestia looked as if though she's had to deal with these things before.

"Yes, voidlings" continued Twilight "Creatures that do not hold a body of their own, but instead are a dark walking mass that consumed everything it crosses, keeping the most suitable and strongest part for a body and tossing out the previous shape they had taken before it. Your human torso description really gave me the shivers....you know what this means, right? Twilight asked to the equally as scared as her, Whitemane.

"Earth......they've been there.....and by the looks of it, the humans did not have the power to stop them...."

Twilight noded with her head hung down.

"This is ill news indeed...." said Whitemane desperately.

"And that's not all....It not only means that the humans couldn't stop them, but also that they only strenghtened them and dealt no damage to their forces what so ever. Their leader has the power to bring back to life fallen voidlings, so if their defenders haven't destroyed every single one of them in battle then they will only all come back to life...."

"So their army is as strong as it ever was, they have the body of humans and the head of....i don't even know what that was." Said Whitemane unable to find a name for what he saw.

"their head never changes, what you saw was the typical voidling face." Explained Twilight.

"Hmm...that doesn't help." Said Whitemane and hung his head down, Twilight and the mayor did the same, and as the night drew closer, Celestia finally decided to say something.

"The night is coming Sir Whitemane, and my power begins to fade...i'm afraid i must soon take my leave, my sister will aid you as best she can over the night."

"We thank you for your support supreme ruler, and for the guards you've sent to help defend our town."

"Don't thank me yet, we haven't even seen what were dealing here yet. for all we know, my guards might not offer much help against something so....dark." said Celestia, wishing she could offer more then she has already given to the defenders.

"Every little bit counts your majesty."

"Bits do not win wars Sir Whitemane...but i hope you will. May luck shine upon you this night my brave ponies, and may you emerge victorious."

Shortly before leaving, Celestia handed Twilight a box containing the elements of harmony. "I trust you'll know how to use these, my precious student, they might just change the outcome of the battle. I have great faith in you Twilight, you've never let us down before, and i know you can do it again." And with those words Celestia flew off, back to her castle.

"Lets hope those come in handy in this battle." Said Whitemane.

"we'll see, i don't think they were made for purposes like these." Replied Twilight.

Whitemane looked to the skies which were getting dark. "The time has come to gather everypony at the town square, we need to discuss our battle strategy."

"Right, we've no time to lose." Said Twilight and followed Whitemane to the town square.

***

The sun was nearly behind the mountains when everypony started gathering around the town square to hear what Whitemane has to say. Whitemane looked around and saw his allies arriving just as planed. From the west side of the town, Applejack came in, and behind her the populace of the town of Appleloosa, led by Braeburn and Sheriff Silverstar and the Buffalo tribe, led by little Strongheart and Chief Thunderhooves.

At the same time, Fluttershy emerged from the Everfree forest alongside with Zecora, The Chimera and The Hydra. From the eastern side of the town, Rarity came running in, seeming scared of something following her, she was indeed followed by someone- the diamond dogs. And it wasn't long before the last of their allies arrived from the skies- Rainbowdash followed by two groups- one, The Wonderbolts and the populace of Cloudsdale, and second, Gilda and her father, the supreme ruler of the griffon empire, known only as Bladewing. The two were leading a massive force of griffons. The griffon army covered half of the sky with their majestic wings as they were preparing for a landing.

One by one, the sons and daughters of Equestria gathered around the town square, everyone- griffons, diamond dogs, earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, and the residents of the Everfree forest were eager to hear for what purpose they have arrived here at this time of the day. Even the great and powerful Trixie and the Flim Flam brothers were here for some unknown reason. Whitemane felt so small, and unimportant as the thousands of eyes surrounded him, waiting for him to give something of a speech. He had only just realized, what and army he has called forth, and that everyone of them will need convincing.

Whitemane looked through the crowd, he was used to the ponies, but the diamond dogs gave him a little shiver, the fierce looks of the buffalo chief and the griffon ruler nearly knocked him out of balance....And lets not even talk about the damn Hydra....Whitemane would have been happy if Fluttershy would have brought out just Zecora and a few eagles, not this giant.....for headed....MONSTER! All four angry heads starring at him and licking their tongues. Whitemane was trying to avoid looking at them, but every time he looked through the crowd he saw them....

"I'd be lucky if i even survive till the beginning of the battle..." Whitemane thought to himself. He hadn't even prepared a speech for this, but the time for it had come and he had to say something. It was hard to simply stand without fainting in a situation like this, let alone convince every single soul of how grave the danger is, but if anypony could do it, then it was Whitemane. Whitemane was already hearing loud coughs of boredom as he was about to begin, every second wasted now would mean an even lower chance for him to succeed in convincing them, and could even lead to someone leaving, so he began.

"Right...good evening everyone, i suppose you all know why have i gathered you here, right?" Whitemane heard no response from the crowd, only the same coughs of boredom. "I'll take that as a yes, but just in case, let me refresh your memories." Whitemane took a deep breath and continued. "As you all know, A large force of attackers is gathering not far from Ponyville, and could start marching to this direction any minute now...The fate of Equestria, is uncertain, and without your help, we will all surely be overrun and be scorched from this land in a matter of days."

A laugh was heard in the crowd. "HA! this guy is a real comedian, where did you pick him up, huh Rainbow? From some kind of circus?" Said Gilda, trying to ruin Whitemanes speech.

"Shh, be quiet Gilda, this is not the time for joking." Rainbowdash tried to reason with the griffon.

"Really? Coz this guy looks like one big jo...." Gilda got interrupted by her father who raised his talon up to her face. He did not make contact, but it was still enough to shut her up...If there was one being in Equestria that Gilda respected, then it was her father.

"Please excuse my daughter, she can get a bit.....rude at times.....please continue."

Whitemane knew of Gildas past visit to Ponyville and knew of her negative attitude towards Fluttershy. He greatly despised her for that and the look on her face when her father called her rude brought joy to Whitemane.

"Right then, as i was saying, Equestria is in grave danger, and we need your help to prevent this disaster, and i mean all of you....Equestrias fate is in your hands."

"HA!" Gilda laughed again. "Why should we help whose who have never offered any help to us? Who's to say we can't just sit in our cloud castle and watch these....things just purge the town of Ponyville? This is not our war." The rest of the griffons laughed and cheered for Gilda.

The leader of the diamond dogs agreed with Gilda. "Indeed, our underground holes are just as deep as thick are the walls of the legendary griffon kingdom. These creatures will never find us, why should we care for some town of donkeys? We are not a part of Ponyville." The diamond dogs laghed. The whole town was talking loudly and laughing, nearly forgetting about what Whitemane had said in the past few minutes.

"BUT YOU ARE PART OF EQUESTRIA!" Shouted Whitemane. "Aren't you?" Whitemane shut the crowd up and left the crowd intrigued, wondering and looking at each other, rethinking their decisions. "Sure, go ahead sit in your petty castle walls, and roam in your undergrounds for as long a you live, see if we care...we won't, COZ WE'LL ALL BE DEAD! And you'll have all the time in the world to decide on what you're going to tell your children, when they ask you "what were you doing while the battle for middle Equestria took place?"

Whitemanes shouting opened the eyes of some of the gathered allies, a few looked like they were ashamed of themselves. "Have you nothing to offer this land but cowardice and shame? Is there no passion in you hearts? Has the blood from your veins dried out completely? is your soul nothing but a chunk of ice, and you mind only a tool that makes your body move, that you would just sit back, watch and laugh as your brothers and sisters are getting slaughtered in the field of battle?"

More and more started taking Whitemanes words seriously as he continued. "These things have traveled continents, worlds and even universes, and left nothing but ashes in their path, do you honestly think your walls and undergrounds can protect you? You castle will crumble easier than a cookie in the hands of a child and they will smoke you out of your underground if they have to.....they will leave no tree unburned, no building standing, no river flowing......and no soul living."

Whitemanes voice became much calmer, but it attracted more and more of those willing to fight to the death by his side. "Only together we will stand a chance, united as we once were in ages past....do you not remember those days? When we all fight side by side....our victory was glorious, and our spoils were ultimate....the foundation of Equestria."

"But those times are long since over." A voice shouted from the crowd, to which Whitemane replied. "Over...but not forgotten...Who's to say we can't reforge this alliance...who's to say griffon, pony, buffalo and diamond dog are not alike in heart? For pity's sake, you dogs were once ponies, weren't you? Who's to say...That we can't win?!"

The crowd stood silent. "See?! You all know what i mean, you all know the legends and you all have the courage to stand with me this day. I ask you once more, join me in pushing this foe back from whence it came...or go back and never show your sorry face here again......Children of Equestria....i call upon you this day, just as the great lord Equestros did in ages past...fight with me as you once did with him....."

"I've had just about enough of this clown!" Shouted Gilda and flew up and spread her wings. "First you call us out of our homes coz your stupid imagination is playing tricks on you, and now you disgrace the name of our great lord, founder of Equestria with you pathetic lies!"

"GIIIIIILDA!" A massive shout, louder than anything the ponies of Ponyville had ever heard was now echoing through the streets of Ponyville...for the first time in years, Bladewing finally decided to take control of his daughter. "Stand down Gilda, i've heard just about enough from you this day!"

"B..But.."

"I don't want to hear it. Come down and stay calm, or i'll have you expelled from our kingdom!"

"WHAT?! You can't possibly mean to..."

"I HAVE SPOKEN! Do i really need to repeat myself?" The entire horde of griffons was shocked by Bladewings sudden burst, they all knew that Gilda was no honorary of the griffon empire, and the only thing saving her from getting beat up in a dark alley was the fact that her father was the supreme ruler of the griffon empire himself. They all had a hunch that Gilda had it coming, and that it was only a matter of time when her father won't be able to stand her arrogance anymore, but no one ever thought that the old griffon had THIS in him...

"Nnno, father.." Muttered Gilda.

"Then come down and stop acting like a little griffon!" Gilda had no choice but to obey. she slowly landed by her fathers side, sat down and stood silent.

"Good girl. That wasn't so hard, was it now?"

"No, father" muttered Gilda in an irritated voice.

"Excuse me for my daughters childish behavior Sir Whitemane. As you see, she can sometimes get a bit...feisty."

"Your apologies aren't necessary oh great king, Gilda simply doesn't understand the importance of this meeting."

"Yes, well, even if so, such disrespect won't be tolerated...not by me...even if it is my own daughter. She seems to have ruined your speech once again, so i think i'll just continue from where you left off.

Bladewing cleared his throat and spoke loudly to everyone around him. "It is true, we all know the legends of the united forces that fought together long ago against evil forces and called themselves , and as a reward for the efforts of the great lord Equestros, the citizens decided to name this land in his name, and from there on, the alliance was known only as "The children of Equestria. Since then many clans have been made, and that which was once united, is now so separate....Ever since that day, i've longed for that alliance to be reforged...to fight once more for something we all hold dear."

Bladewing started speaking louder. "Citizens of Equestria....we've defended this land in ages past...i ask you now to do so again."

The supreme ruler of The griffon empire fought long and hard for his title. In the griffon empire, a ruler is decided by his strenght in combat, and before Bladewing was made king, the empire was ruled by a tyrant. The empire was slowly crumbling- children were starving, farmers couldn't grow anything, families were being separated and some were even working as slaves for the tyrant known as "Darktalon". Many tried to question his methods, but questioning the methods of the king meant challenging him to a duel to the death, and no one proved capable of beating him. He might have been evil and dim-visioned, but he was just as strong as his heart was cold.

"The empire was at the brink of destruction when someone decided to challenge the king to a duel again. Bladewing then was working as a slave over day, but trained long and hard over night, just to prepare for that battle for the throne. He endured many sleepless nights just for this one purpose. The two fought for hours, and the entire empire gathered around as the battle lasted. No challenger had ever lasted longer than two minutes in the arena with Darktalon, so most of the griffons didn't come to the arena coz they thought that the battle would be over before they'd even get there, but this battle lasted so long that the watchers even had the time to go and call the rest of the empire to observe.

As the empire gathered around to watch the epic battle that was going on, Bladewing awoke something in them...a feeling they had not felt for years...-hope. It wasn't long before the entire populace of the griffon empire started shouting his name "BLADEWING! BLADEWING! BLADEWING!

The two fighters strenght and endurance proved to be evenly matched, but Darktalon lacked a few things that Bladewing had- cunning, intelligence, and the support of his beloved ones...Darktalon never even had someone that would or even could care for him...it was those three things that turned the tides for Bladewing.

As the battle was nearing it's end, Bladewing managed to disarm Darktalon and was walking towards him to execute him, and as the cowardly Darktalon was backing up shouting "WEAPON! SOMEONE GIVE ME A WEAPON!" No one even thought of obeying him anymore.

"Fools! I'll have you all..." Were the last words of Darktalon, he had reached the walls of the arena and had nowhere to back anymore, and the arena had a net over it that was preventing any contestants from leaving by air. "Nowhere to run this time, eh Darktalon?" Bladewing laughed as he drove his sword towards the tyrants neck and ended the long years of tyranny with just a swing of his sword. At last, the great tyrant was dead, and the empire was left speechless for a few seconds, only to prepare for cheers louder than anything the walls of the empire had ever heard before. The crowd cheered for hours, watching their hero pick up the crown and place it upon his head....a new king was born and the empire was saved. Bladewing restored the empire to it's former state in a matter of days.

The griffon empire had undying respect for their new king and since that day no one ever dared question his methods....he was the ruler of their dreams, and as Bladewing spoke now, the crowd followed him like bees follow honey.

"THE GREAT KING HAS SPOKEN!" Shouted one of Bladewings most trusted agents. "The griffon empire stand with you this day Sir Whitemane!"

"As do we!" Said the chief of the buffalo tribe.

"Wonderbolts reporting for duty Sir Whitemane." Said Spitfire, and saluted to Whitemane, the rest of the Wonderbolts and populace of Cloudsdale repeated after her.

"Finally a chance to prove how great and powerful Trixie REALLY is!"

"If these things succeed in their quest, then that would mean no more apple trees from which to make our precious cider." That's right brother, that's why we must fight this day. Our cider might not taste good, but a barrel to the head might just keep them out of our lands!" Said the Flim Flam brothers.

"If it's a war that we must fight,

Then we shall aid you with all our might." Rhymed the mysterious Zebra, and both the chimera and hydra roared in approval.

"The town of Ponyville and it's residents are yours to command Sir Whitemane." Said the mayor of the town.

"Eeyup!" Noded Big Mac and with him, Braeburn, Sheriff Silverstar and all the ponies of the town of Appleloosa.

Nearly everyone had agreed to aid Ponyville in the upcoming battle, and a smile was coming up Whitemanes face, until...

"Now hold on...Diamond dogs do still not understand, what's in it for us if we aid you?" "Yea! Yea! Yea!" The rest of the diamond dogs added to their leaders speech.

Whitemane had to deal with these creatures before, and was more than sure that an answer such as "you get to live" wouldn't suffice in this situation and had a hunch that the speech would have no effect on the diamond dogs. So he just decided to bribe them with promises of riches....he knew that these things would do anything for a handful of gems.

"What do you think? Gems of course!"

"GEMS!?" eagerly asked the leader of the diamond dogs and started licking his lips and the rest of the dogs repeated after him.

"Of course! Didn't you know? These thing have traveled universes gathering up the treasures of the land they conquer, they're bound to have tons of gems stored in their treasury. Fight with me and you'll get more gems than there are drops of water in our rivers."

"Well why didn't you say so? So many gems, how can we refuse. hehehe. We will turn those walking blackberries into cardboard boxes and use them to carry our gems in them." The diamond dogs laughed loudly hearing the words of their leader. "The diamond dogs aren't with you Whitemane, but we just happened to be against them, and i guess that makes us allies, hahaha"

"That's good enough for me" Whitemane laughed back to the leader of the diamond dogs. "And i think that's just about everyone, oh wait i almost forgot." Whitemane whistled loudly, and the ground beneath everyones legs started shaking, as a great roar echoed through the skies of Equestria. Everyone nearly started running at the sight of the giant dragon landed in front of Ponyville, but remained calm when they saw the dragon lowering it's head and winking his right eye while looking at Whitemane.

"Ready to help us save Equestria big guy?" Whitemane asked to the dragon. To which the dragon replied by getting up and breathing fire up in the air, not burning anything near him.

"I'll take that as a yes, hehe"

"Mmmhmm" noded the dragon.

"Right then..." Most of the crowd were still focusing their sight on the dragon, but turned back to Whitemane as he began to speak again.

"Are we ready to defend Equestria one more time?" Shouted Whitemane out to the crowd, and got quite a loud and convincing reply "YEAH!" coming from all of the gathered equestrians.

"Right then. Let our voices be heard this day, for together we are..." Whitemane started a sentence and the rest of the crowd joined in and shouted out it's ending with him "THE CHILDREN OF EQUESTRIA!" the hydra and chimera roared, the Wonderbolts bolted through the air, leaving their trail behind them and the dragon filled the skies with fire once more.

"Right then, the night is nearly upon us, and our enemy draws near. Children of Equestria...The day is over, and it's up to us now to bring it back! The time for us to fight back has come....THIS LAND BELONGS TO US! GUESTS WE WELCOME, BUT INTRUDERS WE DRIVE BACK TO FROM WHENCE THEY CAME" The crowd cheered for Whitemane once more, louder than before and awaited his final orders "MAIN YOUR POSTS!" Whitemane shouted out to the crowd and everyone acted quickly.

***

The dragon flew away for now to come back later for a surprise attack from the sky, the hydra and chimera repeated the same strategy by hiding in the forest, the pegasi and griffons flew up and occupied the roofs of the town, watching for when the attackers might come, the diamond dogs dug under the ground. It seemed as if though they just left the scene of battle but Whitemane had a feeling he'd see them again. The land ponies strenghtened their barricades and dug a large hole in front of the town and disguised it to look like simple terrain, and the rest of the ponies stood in the middle of the town, preparing for whatever might come.

Whitemane and the mane 6 gathered around behind the barricades. "Say, Whitemane..." Rainbow started a conversation.

"Hmm?"

"How in the nine hells did you get that dragon to fight for us?!"

"Haha, i told you i had something "special" in mind" Laughed Whitemane. "And hopefully that won't be the last of the help we get...Oh and by the way, Rarity...don't be surprised if you're missing a few gems from your giant chest at home." Laughed Whitemane, slightly nervous.

"WHAAAAT?! Yelled Rarity with her head looking as if though it was about to explode. "YOU ARROGANT LITTLE THIEVING SELF LOVING.....HOW DARE YOU MARCH INTO MY HOME AND TAKE MY POSSESSIONS WITHOUT PERMISSION!?!?"

At this point half of the town was more afraid of Rarity than they were from the voidlings. And yet Whitemane was just standing there with a wide grin on his face.

Rarity was breathing heavily and angrily but calmed down a bit. "When this is over, i'll have you walking around Canterlot in fancy dresses and high heel shoes until your hooves fall off, a single gem missing from my chest is one day of humiliation for you!" Yelled the furious Rarity

"I'm looking forward to it my queen." Said Whitemane and bowed once more.

"You are unbelievable!"

"I know"

"Uugghh....I....hate....you!"

"I love you too my queen!" Laughed Whitemane.

Rarity was about to slap Whitemane as hard as she could when a pegasus came dashing through the sky towards Ponyville shouting "THEY'RE HERE!" The entire town turned their attention to the pegasus who continued to dash through Ponyville shouting "THE ATTACKERS ARE HERE! THEY'RE REALLY HERE! THEY'LL BE HERE ANY MINUTE!"

The pegasus landed next to Whitemane, and Whitemane tried to calm him down. "Easy there, relax boy, and tell me everything you saw."

"They're here sir, they're all marching towards here as we speak."

"How many?"

"I don't know sir, i never knew what number comes after ten thousand...."

Whitemane nearly lost his balance just by hearing ten thousand...."Ten thousand?"

"More sir.....more."

The surrounding ponies didn't hear the conversation but knew that what ever the pegasus had to report didn't make Whitemane happy. Whitemane decided not to inform the others about the numbers, coz that might scare someone into dropping his pitch fork...and the last thing the town would need right now is someone hysterically running around screaming "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

One of the ponies from the barricades walked over to Whitemane. "Is everything alright Sir? you seem worried."

"Just need to take a deep breath before this begins, i'm alright."

"Sir....is there even any hope for us?"

Whitemane walked over to the young pony and put his hoof on his shoulder and looked into his eyes saying- "There's always hope."

Their eye contact didn't last long, after mere seconds the army of darkness was already visible from the barricades. The voidling leader stopped in front of his army and waited for his army to fall in line. One by one, the voidlings moved closer, forming a massive line. The ponies could only see one line, over a hundred voidlings stood in it, but behind that one were hundreds more lines just like that one. For a short minute, Whitemane and the voidling leader starred at each other. Legionnaire seemed a bit, confused at the sight. "What's this? a last stand? HAH! How charming....This should be fun...GIVE ME THAT HORN!" Legionnaire blew a loud horn and the army started marching towards the town, and the ponies cowered as they saw more and more lines of voidlings appear behind the first line.

Whitemane did what he could to try and encourage the defenders. "They're really here...anyone still have doubts of my words? I see you shaking in fear, but believe me when i say that now is not the time to be afraid, now is the time to show them, that we can remain brave even when starring into the very eyes of death itself!"

None of the ponies panicked, but no one could remain too calm either, but somehow they all managed to stand still. The sight of the ponies standing so bravely confused Legionnaire even more. "Hmm...interesting, these...ponies don't fear us. How can they remain so calm when even the humans panicked like little girls?...Perhaps there's more to these creatures than i imagined..." Legionnaire paused for a moment to think

Legionnaire shook his head to try to come back to his senses. "Brblbrl, what am i saying? They're just walking chunks of meat, nothing more....lets see how brave they remain when they're sitting under a cloud of arrows, hehe. ARCHERS!" Legionnaire shouted to his army and the front lines made stepped aside to make way for a battalion of archers that were in the back lines. The archers drew their arrows and were preparing to fire on Legionnaires command.

Whitemane foresaw this and was well prepared for it. "You ready Rainbowdash?" He shouted up to the pegasus, to which she replied...

"were ready for whatever might come Whitemane." Rainbowdash, the Wonderbolts and a horde of pegasi flew up into the air and were fluttering over the rooftops of Ponyville. "Alright guys, just like we practiced." Rainbowdash said to the Wonderbolts, and they gathered all the pegasi in a formation and awaited for the arrow storm.

Legionnaire didn't even pay attention to the pegasi above Ponyville, and still commanded his archers to fire without hesitating. "Alright archers...on my command....UNLEASH HELL!" And the arrows were launched into the air right as the archers heard the signal.

Everyones eyes widened and hearts started pounding ever so fast at the sights of thousands of arrows flying towards them. Only Whitemane and the pegasi remained calm. "NOW RAINBOWDASH!" Shouted Whitemane.

Legionnaire started laughing as the arrows neared the town, but his laugh was cut short when he saw the pegasi above Ponyville ascending into giant tornado. His mouth remained open but the laugh had turned into ultimate confusion and a slight shiver ran through his body.....The same arrows they just sent to liberate Ponyville were now flying back towards them. The voidlings couldn't do anything other than obey their leaders command, and since he was too shocked from the sight to give the command for them to brace themselves, the front lines of his army were massacred by their own arrows.

Loud laughs and cheers were heard from the town of Ponyville, Rainbowdash flew down to brohoof Whitemane and some of the townsfolk even started dancing. The army that was nearing Ponyville suddenly just didn't seem that scary anymore. "Hahaha! I knew you guys could do it!" Whitemane laughed.

"Piece of cake!" Rainbowdash replied.

Legionnaire was stunned by what just happened, some of the voidlings hit by arrows weren't standing as still as he did. One of his servants walked up to him. "Sir?....."

"Load more arrows." Legionnaire commanded.

"SIR! What..."

"I SAID MORE ARROWS!" Legionnaire yelled so loud, that his servant just ran back to the line. The archers seemed confused about this order but they had no choice but to obey,

"Woah! it ain't over yet Rainbowdash...get ready for round two." Whitemane said, and Rainbow reacted quickly.

Right as the next barrage of arrows came flying, the tornado was formed again...Legionnaire fell for the same mistake twice and payed a high price for it....more than half of his archers were now dead, yet Legionnaire himself was not struck by a single arrow again.

"LOAD AGAIN!" Legionnaire yelled.

"SIR! What are you doing?"

"They can't keep this up for long, surely they must be tired, i don't think they'll be able to reflect another round...FIRE NOW!" and so the archers obeyed.

"HA! I can't believe it! He's doing it again!" Rainbowdash laughed. "Alright guys, once more.

The pegasi weren't getting tired...on the contrary, they were only getting inspired from laughing as they saw Legionnaire destroying his own army. The arrows were fired and the tornado was formed, just like before and Legionnaire was still standing in a state of trance, unable to realize his grave mistake.

"Fooled you once, shame on me, fooled you twice, shame on you, fooled you three times....Damn you're stupid" Whitemane laughed and the town laughed with him.

Legionnaires servant walked up to him once again. "Sir.....We don't....."

"Load again!"

"Sir....we can't...."

"WHAT!? ARE YOU DISOBEYING MY DIRECT ORDERS?!"

"No Sir...i was just trying to tell you that we have no archers left...."

Legionnaire looked behind him and saw thousands of voidlings laying in a puddle of their own black mass...he finally realized his mistake.

"Bring forth the infantry...lets hope they're ground defense isn't as good as their air defense."

"Yes sir." His servant sounded very unsure.

"In the many years which you've served me, i've never seen you so...uncertain....don't doubt my methods soldier, when this is over my army will be revived back into it's former size....i haven't lost my leadership skills....but have gotten used to winning without even receiving any resistance....Finally, after all these years, someone has actually proven to be a challenge to me...Be vigilant my men...these ponies aren't as weak as they look."

"Sir...i;ve never had any doubts of your methods."

"Good...gather my army then."

"Yes Sir."

And gather them he did, it wasn't long before the line of infantry was reformed and the dead bodies weren't even visible anymore. The voidlings awaited Legionnaires command once again, and he did not hesitate to give it.

"CHAAAAAARGE!"

***

The laughing of the town soon ended as they saw the army of darkness marching...no...RUNNING towards them. Whitemane tried to encourage everyone just as he did before. "Here comes the hardest part...stand with me now, let none pass, don't retreat, and show them no mercy...for you shall receive none."

"The ponies near the barricaded readied whatever weapons they had and strenghtened their positions. Everyone was preparing for the worst when something neither they nor the voidlings had expected...The voidlings started simply briefly disappearing....It took a while to spot what was really going on...they were being pulled underground.

"HA! It's the diamond dogs, they did not desert us after all.

Legionnaires army continued disappearing and there was nothing he could do about it. His servant tried to keep the voidlings in lane. "KEEP RUNNING! don't let their cheap tricks scare.....WOAH!" He shouted right as he was pulled underground. He fell down a long tunnel and couldn't see a thing until he finally landed heavily, unable to get up.

"Uuugh...what the..."

"Got any gems on you mister? Hua ha he he he!"

The last thing the servant saw was the claw of a diamond dog near his face.

With both their leader and his assistant not trying to do anything to help them stay in lane, the voidlings broke the line and just started running separately, which made the diamond dogs job a lot easier.

Legionnaire was in no condition to give any more orders, all his victories had made him forget what it felt like to actually be losing. First the arrow reflection tornado, then his army just randomly disappearing, and if that wasn't enough then there's also the giant camouflaged hole in front of Ponyville. Just as Legionnaire got used to his voidlings just disappearing one by one, a whole line of them just fell down.

The hole wasn't just empty, it contained a little surprise from Zecora, which made quick work of the voidlings that fell into the hole. the army stopped at the edge of the hole, and were looking left and right looking for a way around, but there wasn't any, so they just kept standing, until their leader got there.

"I've traveled worlds and universes, annihilating creatures much more superior to these...and now i'm getting beat by PONIES before i've even gotten to their town!?" Legionnaire kept shouting with great anger.

"WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! GO!" He commanded his army

"Where sir? there's no way around." Explained one of the soldiers.

"I don't want you to go around idiot, i want you to go through! That hole doesn't have room for all of us. Some of you'll just have to take one for the team and fill it with your dead bodies."

The soldiers lost nearly all the certainty they had left for their leader, and just stood there looking upon each other not knowing what to do.

"I SAID MOVE IT!" Legionnaire yelled at his soldiers.

The voidlings hesitated but eventually they convinced themselves that this was right...their leader hasn't let them down this far and will surely lead them to victory once more. So they just started jumping into the pit.

The defenders starred at the voidlings and had no idea what was going on.

"What the hell are they doing?" Asked Rainbow

"Looks like they're just trying to surrender." Replied Whitemane.

"Ha! yeah, looks like it." Laughed Rainbowdash and shouted out to the voidlings "HEY GUYS! IF YOU WANT TO SURRENDER YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD US!"

Rainbows mocking shouts angered Legionnaire greatly and he shouted back. "YOU WON'T LOOK SO CONFIDENT ONCE YOUR HEAD IS ON MY SPEAR!"

"I think you might have just slightly pissed him off Rainbow, hehe." Laughed Whitemane.

"Meh, he doesn't look too angry to me."

Slowly, the pit was filling up with the bodies of voidlings, and the ones still up started walking over their dead brothers in order to cross the pit.

"Worry not brothers, your sacrifice will not be forgotten and you shall be resurrected once this is over."

Even though the army of darkness had buried much of their brothers alive, the sight of them crossing the pit did not please Whitemane, for the army still seemed larger than ever.

"Damn.....is there no end to this? They just keep on coming. Looks like it's time to call in the heavy cavalry." Whitemane whistled loudly and the ground itself started shaking as 3 echoing roars passed over the field of battle, each one coming from a different direction.

The army stopped marching for a moment...for the first time in their lives, the voidlings seemed scared. "What sorcery is this?" Said Legionnaire, slightly nervous. But the look on his eyes was nothing compared to the one that he put on after he saw both the hydra and chimera running out of the forest.

"What in the nine hells are those things?!" Yet again the leader of the voidlings didn't even bother giving orders to his army, and as the two massive creatures were running towards them, he only watched his army getting trampled and eaten alive by the monsters.

"HOW IS IT THAT THESE SMALL PITIFUL CREATURES COMMAND A FORCE OF BEASTS SO SUPERIOR EVEN TO OUR RACE?!" Legionnaire yelled loudly with a voice full of anger and started yelling even louder as he saw his army not trying to do anything to stop the creatures. "WELL DON'T JUST STAND THERE YOU FOOLS....KILL THEM!"

The voidlings tried everything- swords, spears, axes, but with no ranged attackers their were worm food for the two, the chimera clawed them, breaking their armor and weapons like it was nothing, and the hydra wasn't even looking, it simply trampled over the voidlings, leaving only stains on the ground in his path.

"There's no stopping of these things....KEEP MARCHING!" Legionnaire gave the command, and march they did...many did not make it, but many also made it past the two monsters...."If we can't kill em, then we'll just have to ignore them." The plan seemed to be working, the voidling army was still marching towards Ponyville. Legionnaire started getting cocky again as he neared the town.

"Haha! Keep marching men, were almost there." For some reason the voidlings stopped, and Legionnaire looked back. "MOVE IT! What are you idiots starring at." One of the voidlings pointed to the sky and Legionnaire looked towards the direction that he pointed in....As if the hydra and chimera weren't enough for him....The dragon was here too.

"What.....the hell....is that thing...." Legionnaire asked to himself and gazed at the dragon that flew right passed him over his head breathing fire. At first he thought that the dragon had missed him, but when he turned back he realized that he was not aiming for him. The soldiers that were just following him were now scattered, running around covered in flames.

Legionnaire started regretting the decision to come here, if just a few hours ago he thought that a candy covered fairy tale world should be no trouble at all to conquer, then now he realized an important lesson that he failed to listen to all these years "Don't judge a book by it's cover."

***

Less and less voidlings made it past the wall of fire and all the clawing and trampling, but Legionnaire wasn't about ti give the order to retreat now. He wasn't always this soulless creature that he is now...The story of Legionnaire started long ago, when he was still just a soldier in the legion, just an ordinary soldier that was doing his job and had no extraordinary attributes besides the ones a typical soldier had to have.

But for some reason it was always this soldier that was the last one to stay alive in the battlefield. and when others asked him "How does he do it?" He would always answer "I don't know, it just happens....i'm just a simple legionnaire, no better and no worse than the rest. And that's how he got his name, since he always referred to himself as "Legionnaire" his general decided that the title "Legionnaire" would suite him much better than something like "super soldier" or "The undying"

As he fought, his general grew more and more assured of his capabilities, and it wasn't long before he granted him his own battalion. Legionnaire made a fetish out of wars, and loved nothing more than marching his forces to victory through the field of battle. But as the years passed, Legionnaire grew old, and so did his men, but he wanted to be always young and always ready for a fight. He was ready to do anything just to keep up his life of endless battles, and so he found a way to contact the fallen one and summon him to his world. He made a deal with him, in exchange for the souls of him and his men. And the fallen one granted him his wish...he was now always young and battle ready.

And so Legionnaires reign spread not only across cities and continents, but also across worlds and universes, through the void gates, and now he was here. Even though he had long since lost all that was left of his humanity, he still had his one undying wish deep inside his head...he always wanted to go down fighting...to die from a wound he receives in battle.

Legionnaire kept marching, and despite everything that got in their path, his army blindly followed him to the end.

"Damn...this guy just doesn't know when to quit....get ready everyone....the true fight is only about to begin." Whitemane shouted out to the defenders.

The army of darkness was crippled, their spirits broken, and their armors shattered....but they weren't dead yet...The voidling had finally reached the town of Ponyville and were nearing the barricades. As they were nearing them, the windows of the town opened and Pinkies party canons were revealed.

The battle reached it's culmination at this point....The voidling were tearing down the barricades, ponies tried to stop them with their home made weapons, the buffalo horde marched towards the voidlings and were trampling them, the griffons formed the front line of defense and were clawing the voidlings away from the barricades, and party canons were firing everything that Pinkie had put in them- balloons, wet flour, streamers, etc. The Flim Flam brothers were using their machine as a catapult for bombarding the voidlings, and Trixie........Where the hell was Trixie O_O?

Many of the voidlings were stopped by the canons, either blinded by the streamers or got stuck in the wet flour on the ground and tripped in it and got trampled by their own army. Despite all the effort the children of Equestria put up, the voidlings still got through the barricades....their army seemed to never end. If for the first few hours the battle seemed to be turning to the favor of the defenders, then now it seemed like everything they had done was in vain. The army was now marching through the streets of Ponyville tearing down their buidlings, ponies, buffalo's, and griffons were still trying to hold them back but everything seemed pointless. For every voidling they kill, ten more would just march in, and scouts reported that the largest part of their army was still waiting outside the town. Even the three massive creatures in the middle of the field were starting to get tired of the endless battle.

Even the princess of the night was powerless to stop them. Lunas magic seemed to have no effect on the voidlings. The voidlings were shadow beings and Luna could only use shadow magic. This is probably why the voidling planned their attack at night, Celestias magic might be able to harm them, but that would mean having to wait for the dawn to arrive, but the defenders had nothing left with what to hold the voidlings back, and the elements of harmony were useless since the mane six was so separate, and had no time to pay attention to Twilight trying to assemble them,

When all hope seemed lost, Whitemane was still fighting alongside with Bladewing in the middle of the town. The two fought valiantly and didn't even think of giving up...they were ready to fight to the death.

"Hmm...I never thought i'd died fighting side by side with a pony." Said Bladewing.

"What about side by side with a friend?" Replied Whitemane.

The two looked upon each other and Bladewing spoke. "Aye....i can do that." And the two continued fightingas more and more voidlings kept swarming into the town....the two fighters were practically the only thing still keeping the town together...they were the only two with hope still left.

Rainbowdash and the other pegasi were defenseless against the voidlings, with no archers left in their army, they had no more need for air support, yet she still tried to fight, dropping random objects upon the heads of the voidlings and watching for surrounded ponies that she could save from the grip of the voidlings. Rainbowdash still thought that they stood a chance.

"Come on! Don't give up, just keep fighting. We can win this!" She shouted, but ash she looked around she saw that she was shouting to no one other but herself...the pegasi had abandoned her. Rainbowdash looked around the town and saw only flames, rubble and ponies running for their lives...."It's over" she thought, "There's nothing left for us to do...nothing left that could save us....no weapons...no defenders.....no hope....no nothing."

Rainbowdash was just about to let it all go and just stop fluttering her wings, and fall down into the horde of voidlings to be torn apart alive...coz at this point it didn't even matter what she did, either way she would end up dead, she could only flee and delay it, but she didn't want to be remembered as a coward that abandoned everything that she has ever loved.

Something caught Rainbows attention...something that snapped her out of her desperation and gave her one last ray of hope.....Bladewing and Whitemane still fighting...doing more with just two than the whole town did with hundreds. Rainbowdash wanted to fly down and join them and fight to the death alongside the two heroes...but she had a much better idea....something that could actually still turn the tides of the whole fight.

She flew down to the two and called upon Whitemane "Whitemane!"

"Rainbowdash! have you come to join us in our last stand?" Whitemane asked, not turning away from the battle in front of him, he only recognized Rainbowdash by her voice.

"No Whitemane...there's still hope...i have an idea." Replied Rainbowdash.

"Really now? What did you have in mind...i'm up for anything right now, hehe." Laughed Whitemane as he chopped off another voidlings head.

"Good! Coz what i had in mind will need you to do something....something you might not like."

"And just what might that be?" Asked Whitemane, slightly confused...what could possibly he not want to try to pull off at a time like this.

"You know what i mean Whitemane....The one thing you promised to never try."

"What?! There's no way i'm doing that, it's way too dangerous!"

"More dangerous than staying here?"

"Yes! I might end up killing what's left of the children of Equestria."

"We're all gonna be dead soon anyways Whitemane...."

"Yeah, but at least it won't be from my hooves."

"WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHETHER WE DIE FROM THEIR HANDS OR FROM YOU TRYING TO SAVE US?! Aren't you at least going to try and save us?! Can't you see that this is the only way?! Rainbowdash shouted, trying to talk some sense into Whitemane.

"Might i ask, just what are the two of you talking about?" Asked Bladewing out of plain curiosity.

Whitemane was too preoccupied with his inner struggle to answer Bladewing right now....He was fighting against himself, unable to decide....Stay here fighting and die a heroes death...or break his most sacred vow, with a chance of killing everyone around him.....Time was running out.

"MAKE A CHOICE!" Rainbowdash yelled.

And that was all he needed to decide. "Evacuate Ponyville! Get everyone out, order everyone to run as deep into Everfree forest as they can!" Whitemane gave a command to Rainbowdash, and even though she hated taking orders, this time she gladly obeyed.

"You got it Whitemane!" Rainbowdash saluted to Whitemane, flew up and circled around Ponyville shouting "ABANDON YOUR POSTS! RUN TO THE FOREST! FAAAAAL BAACK! FAAAAAAL BAAAACK!"

Rainbowdash circled around and watched everyone fleeing. Ponies abandoned their homes, griffons left the front lines, the buffalo herd and the hydra stopped trampling the voidlings, the dragon flew off and so did the chimera.....everyone fled for the Everfree forest.....except for the dragon who flew back to his cave in the mountains. The only one who refused to flee was Bladewing, who got carried away into the forest by Whitemane and Rainbowdash, while still struggling.

"What do you think you're doing?! Let me at them! Let me fight! I'LL TEAR THEM APART!"

When they reached the entry to the forest Gilda flew by and took over Whitemanes role and helped Rainbow carry Bladewing away from the field of battle. Only Whitemane remained behind

"Get everyone to safety, as far from here as possible, leave no one behind!" Ordered Whitemane.

"Got it." Replied Rainbowdash.

"I trust you'll know when everything will be clear for you to come back if this works...."

"Yeah, after the big explosion."

"WHAT EXPLOSION!?" Gilda shouted with a worried look on her face.

"Trust me on this on Gilda, everything's gonna be alright, no time to explain."

"Right...lets hope this guy knows what he's doing."

"Good luck Whitemane, i know you can do it." Were the last words Whitemane heard from Rainbowdash. After that they disappeared into the forest.

Whitemane stood for a moment, making sure everyone's reach a long enough distance from the town. After he was sure, of their safety he took a deep breath, turned around and started slowly walking back towards the center of the town. The army of darkness was marching right towards him with their leader in front. The army stopped but their leader continued walking toward Whitemane, and Whitemane towards him.

"Alright you bastards....time to see how shadow likes lightning......"

To be continued......

The Reunion
View Online

The last thunderbolt

The Reunion

The two were slowly walking towards each other, and now they were standing face to face, the leaders of both sides- the defenders, Whitemane, commander of the Equestrian army, and the attackers, Legionnaire, leader of the army of darkness. Their armies weren't with them at this point, Whitemane ordered his forces to retreat and Legionnaire commanded his to stay back as he went to parley with Whitemane. Legionnaire was the one who started the conversation.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is. If you've come to surrender then it's a little to late for that now."

"Surrender? Was that ever even an option?"

"No, haha!"

"I thought as much."

"Then why have you come? trying to hold me back while your forces retreat? or are they just sitting in the forest waiting to ambush us when the time is right? Or did you simply desire to die by the axe of the famous Legionnaire? Ha ha!"

"Famous? Ha! I don't think so. Hmm, actually i take that back, i think i've seen you on a box of cereal before." Said Whitemane sarcastically. His actions angered Legionnaire greatly.

"Grr! You dare mock ME!? I'll have your head for that!"

"Come on then! Prove your words with actions! Let the two leaders of this battle face each other in a dueal to the death!" Whitemane shouted, and waved his hooves, encouraging Legionnaire to attack him.

"With pleasure!" Legionnaire said and started moving towards Whitemane with his axe drawn. "Now hold still, this won't take long."

Legionnaire swung his axe, but Whitemane dodged his swing easily. "Hold still i said!" He swung again and Whitemane dodged it again. Legionnaire just kept on swinging while grunting angrily and kept missing swing after swing. With each next swing it became only easier for Whitemane to dodge them. After several swings Whitemane barely even had to move to dodge his swings.

"GAAAAARH! IS this a fight or ball dancing?! You haven't even tried attacking me!"

"Why should i? You are your own worst enemy."

Legionnaires forces could only watch as he miserably tried to fight the crafty pony. Their respect for their leader fell with each second since the very beginning of the fight, and now it fell to such a level that they were trying to hold on and not start laughing at him out loud.

Eventually Whitemane got tired of fooling around with Legionnaire, on his next swing, Whitemane flew up in the air, cutting off Legionnaires line of reach for him. "What's this? Given up have you? Fleeing already? Can't even die with honor!? Come back and face death you pathetic coward!" Legionnaire was furious, Whitemane was winning him without even hitting him. By the look on the soldiers faces some would think that they were about to just go murder their own leader so that he would stop embarrassing them.....The leader they once knew and would gladly have followed to the ends of the earth was now nothing but a circus clown in control of a doomsday device.

Whitemane laughed at the living mockery that was shouting at him thinking that it would make a difference. "Ha! no wonder you aren't famous. How have you even lived to this day is beyond me. I'm starting to wonder if the tales about you are all lies, that instead of universes you've traveled only playgrounds, and that by "slaughtered many fearsome creatures" you meant old man Samuels two pet puppies."

"GJAAARRRGGGHHGAAAAA! How dare you mock me?! You miserable fairy tale thing! I am the great Legionnaire! The greatest soldier that was once part of the roman armies! WHO ARE YOU TO STAND AGAINST ME!?"

"You aren't even a stain of the warrior you once were! Instead of fighting for fame and glory you are now fighting for the pain and suffering of others! You once protected those who you later massacred! Your enemies were once bandits and rebels...but now it's you yourself. Your head is just as empty as your heart and soul....there's nothing but void left in there...At least i still fight for an honorable cause-the safety of my friends."

"You are not making any sense fool! i am still the same warrior i once was, i only prolonged my life as a warrior, i still find honor in slaying every foe i face, whereas you on the other hand can't even participate in a duel without fleeing!"

"Slaying your foes?! YOU ARE MASSACRING INNOCENTS! WHERE'S THE HONOR IN THAT!? And i am not fleeing, i just thought that you alone are not worth my time....i'm taking on your entire army....i am putting your souls to rest." And with those words, Whitemane launched himself into the sky, as high as he could go.

"What is that fool up to?" Wondered Legionnaire.

"YOU MIGHT HAVE A LOT OF CARDS, BUT I'M HOLDING ALL THE ACES!" Whitemane screamed from the sky.

Whitemane reached a high point in the sky, then stopped for a brief moment, and bolted down towards Legionnaires army. He thought he could perform the same move as his brother did long ago- the sonic electrocosion, but for some reason he didn't manage it....he just wasn't fast enough. As he bolted down towards the army of darkness, he sharply turned back right before reaching the ground. He flew up high into the air again and tried it again, but failed again, he managed to get it into a cone, but couldn't detonate it to cause the explosion.

Whitemane tried again and again but never managed, and on his 5th try he ran out of energy and didn't turn back fast enough and hit the ground. Whitemane fell heavily and the pain from the collision with the ground nearly knocked him unconscious. He might not have been unconscious, and he even had the strenght left in him to get up, but he wouldn't.

"What's the point?" He thought to himself. "I've failed everyone that ever trusted me, and broke every promise i made...i might as well just die here rather than go back and tell all my friends "Oh hi guys, were all gonna die and i'm the one to blame"."

It wasn't long before Legionnaire walked up to Whitemane. "HA! and you said my head was empty...and i suppose that trying to destroy and army of voidlings with mere wind would be considered a good idea in your land."

"Just cut the crap and end it already you bastard! If i'm going down, then i'm going down laughing instead of giving you the pleasure of seeing me scream in terror, hahaha!" laughed Whitemane "Mors principium est!" He added something in latin that the creature couldn't understand.

Whitemanes mocking attitude left the creature in confusion for a moment, but soon he came to his senses and shouted "No one escapes my wrath you pathetic creature, for i am The Legionnaire!"

And with those words he swung his axe down towards Whitemanes face, but got interrupted by the rays of sunlight coming from over the mountains in the east. He got blinded by the light for a short moment.

Meanwhile Whitemane turned around and looked to the sunlight shinning through the mountains. The rays of sunlight suddenly gave new hope to Whitemane. Words echoed in Whitemanes head. "Look to my coming at the first light of the fifth day, at dawn, look to the east."

"Blackmane." Whitemane said to himself, right as the shape of a pegasus revealed itself in the direction Whitemane was looking at.

"One pegasus? That's your army? HA! Some reinforcements. Now hold still while i cut you in half!"

"One is all i need to stop you!" Said Whitemane and dashed towards his brother right as Legionnaire was about to cut him in half.

Whitemane reached his brother in just a few seconds, and the two placed their hooves on each others shoulders as they finally were united again after all these years.

"Heh, about time you arrived here." Laughed Whitemane. "What took you so long?"

"Well somepony happened to have forgot to mention on how to reach Ponyville in their message, so i had to ask for directions." Blackmane answered sarcastically and both brothers laughed. Blackmane took off his hoof of Whitemanes shoulder and looked at the army standing at the bottom of the mountains.

"I see you've made some friends since we last met."

"Yeah well, what can i say....i'm a wanted pony. And now that you're here, what do you say for a little lightning show?"

"You took the words right outa my mouth brother,,,,lets show these bastards what happens when they try to take our land."

The whole army was watching the two brothers talking to each other, but couldn't hear a word. "What is this, some kind of drama movie?! What the hell are those two up to?" Legionnaire became curious of the two brothers actions.

The army continued to watch the two brothers as they bolted high into the air, and paused for a brief moment once they reach a point so high that the voidlings nearly lost sight on them.

"Ready to send these bastards back to their homes, brother?" Asked Whitemane

"As ready as i'll ever be" Replied Blackmane. And with those words the two brothers started circling rapidly with each other in order to build up their speed. When their circle had enough speed they launched themselves down towards the army of darkness. The electric cone was already formed, and as they neared the ground it started breaking and emitting very bright lights and circulating with electricity.

"Woah..." Was the last thing that Legionnaire said before the cone got detonated....The sonic electrocosion worked, and a huge black wave of lightning passed over the land. One side of the explosion ended when reaching the Everfree forest, and the other one reached the giant crater in which was the portal from which the voidling army came.

As the wave passed over the army, no voidling was left alive, only pieces of armor were left after them that covered large amounts of terrain. And as the wave passed over the portal, the portal closed and no more voidlings could enter through it....

And with that, the whole war was ended in mere seconds, The two brothers both had a part of lightning within them, they were born with it, they're mother was struck with lightning shortly before she gave birth to them, and passed away right as the two brothers saw daylight. Now the reason why Whitemane didn't succeed in detonating the cone earlier, was clear- Only together could they succeed, coz one of them just didn't have the amount of lightning in him to power up the explosion.

all the voidlings were dead....all except one at least. The two brothers noticed Legionnaire not moving but standing on his knees with smoke coming from his armor. Something was different about him...he seemed smaller. The brothers moved closer to him and saw something neither of them had expected....Legionnaire had turned back to his human form. Electricity was circulating through his body, it was cleared that his time was running out.

With his last breath, Legionnaire said these words: "You know....." The electricity was making it hard for him to speak. "A wise pony once.......said......Mors Principium est......i now remember what.....those words mean......they mean-death is the.....beginning......for most people it is......but for me.....it was the end.......My body.....my soul.....my heart and mind.......were all imprisoned....but i myself....i died the moment....i made the deal....."

Legionnaire looked upon the two brothers and said one more sentence. "Thank you.....for releasing me......" And with those words, the once great warhero collapsed to the ground and the electricity slowly left his body.

Whitemane walked over to his body, bent down, closed his eyes and whispered "Requiescat in pace. Your honor has been restored with your death."

***

The brothers didn't even get a chance to talk, the equestrians were already returning to the town and ran to the two heroes and started hugging them from all sides and cheering "You did it!" "Way to go!" "I knew you could do it!" Everyone was back in the town, except for the diamond dogs, who were trying to find some spoils of war in the field.

But despite the cheerful moment, Whitemane still seemed troubled about something. He silenced the crowd. "Shh, wait, wait, wait. Listen!"

"What's wrong?"

"Shh. Listen...do you hear that?" Everyone hushed and listened, and indeed something strange was heard from one of the alleys in Ponyville...sounded like a moaning child. Everyone ran to the alley to investigate...Rarity was the first one to arrive since the moaning seemed familiar to her. She ran into the alley and shouted in shock from what she saw.

"SWEETIE BELLE!" Rarity ran to her poor sister who was laying on the ground still struggling from the electricity coursing through her body...how such a young filly survived such a long time of electricity running through her was a mystery even to the two brothers who were experts in this matter.

"You bastard! What have you done to my sister!?" Rarity shouted at the brothers and tried to tend to her sister, she was about to take her in her hooves but Whitemane stopped her.

"STOP! Don't touch her, it's too dangerous!"

"Hooves off me you brute!"

"Please, allow me to help!" Whitemane said and moved over to Sweetie Belle and bended down to her.

"Don't you dare touch my sister you maniac!" Rarity shouted at Whitemane and wanted to stop him.

"I'm trying to help!"

"You've helped quite enough already, thank you!"

"Trust me...i know what i'm doing." Said Whitemane and put his hooves on Sweetie Belle.

The whole town watched and waited for what would happen...the fate of the poor filly was now in Whitemanes hooves. For a short moment Whitemane kept holding his hooves on Sweetie, and after a short moment Sweetie got better and stopped shaking and had no more signs of being covered in electricity. But now, instead of Sweetie, Whitemane started shaking as electricity ran through his body. The ponies around him stood with their mouths and eyes wide open...Their hero seemed to be near death right now, but their worrying was misplaced, for Whitemane stopped shaking after several seconds. His body was already a home for lightning, and electricity barely even tickled him.

He turned toward Rarity to explain. "I'm sorry for making your sister suffer, i absorbed the lightning from her and brought it to my body, which is more resistant to it....your sister should be fine now." Whitemane said and collapsed to his knees.

"Whitemane! Are you alright?" Asked Rainbowdash

"Yes i'm fine, don't worry, just a bit....tired."

Rarity was far too preoccupied to hear what Whitemane had to say right now. she picked her sister up in her hooves and started kissing her forehead and cheeks rapidly from how happy she was to see her alright. "Oh Sweetie I'm so glad you're alright, *kiss, kiss, kiss* Why were you here? What were you still doing in town? Why didn't you ran into the forest with the rest of us?!"

"But i really wanted to stay and see Whitemane fight, he's so brave, you should have seen him dueling their leader, he couldn't even touch Whitemane, Whitemane won without even hitting him. Whitemane decided not to fight him but instead he joined some other pegasus that appeared from the east, and together they made some kind of explosion that destroyed their entire army. The last thing i remember was the wave of the explosion coming towards me...next thing i know, i wake up here with all of you around me."

"Never do that again Sweetie! Do you know how close i was to losing you forever? If Whitemane wasn't here i would have too!"

"What do you mean big sis?"

"You got hit by the lightning from the explosion, you were shaking on the ground here for minutes and Whitemane saved you by absorbing the lightning from your body."

"Really? He can do that? Wow, that's so...."

"Sweetie!"

"Right, i'm sorry big sis, i should have went with you...i promise i won't ever do that again."

"All that matters to me now is that you're safe Sweetie." Said Rarity and hugged her sister tightly.

"Your....crushing...me" Sweetie said, barely being able to breathe.

"Oh, sorry Sweetie, i don't know what came over me." Said Rarity and let her sister go, after which Sweetie started breathing heavily, trying to catch her breath.

Rarity walked over to Whitemane. "I....i don't know what to say.....thank you Whitemane, you don't know how much she means to me."

"Don't mention it i was just...." Whitemane tried to say something but got interrupted by Rarity hugging her.

"Thank you..." Rarity said again, this time with tears in her eyes.

"He he...don't mention it."

Sweetie Belle walked over and hugged Whitemane too, and so did the rest of the mane 6. After the hug, they all walked out of the alley and walked across Ponyville over to the town square, to await Celestias arrival. On the way there, Rainbowdash walked over to the two brothers.

"Is this who i think it is Whitemane?" She asked pointing at Blackmane.

"If by "this" you mean my brother Blackmane, then yes."

"I knew it! I've heard a lot about you. Pleased to meet cha, I'm Rainbowdash."

"Likewise." Replied Blackmane "You already know my name. It so happens that i've heard a lot about you too....best flyer in Equestria if i'm not mistaken."

"Ha! you bet'cha"

"You and i are very much alike Rainbowdash." Said Blackmane and raised his wings, revealing his cutie mark- it was almost the same as Rainbows, only instead of a white cloud, it was a black one, and with a yellow colored lightning bolt instead of a rainbow colored one.

"WOAH! It looks just like mine!"

"Even the way we got it is the same....right as we broke the sound barrier."

"Wow! We should have a race some day."

"Definitely!"

"Awesome! I'm looking forward to it Blackmane, but as for now, it's time to celebrate!"

Rainbowdash flew up and started cheering "Ha! Look at all these scraps of armor, they're all actually dead! You did it! We did it! We saved Equestria, woooohooo!"

Whitemane watched Rainbowdash cheering, but seemed troubled about something yet again, even though it was a very cheerful moment....something seemed familiar about this situation to Whitemane...Then he realized- this was the same image from his vision. Whitemane looked to his right and there it was, one of the voidlings had somehow survived under the rubble of a building and was aiming his bow at Rainbowdash. Whitemane reacted momenterally, he saw that the bow was already drawn to it's end and he couldn't stop the voidling from making the shot....but he could still save Rainbowdash.

The voidling launched the arrow and Whitemane bolted towards Rainbowdash, pushing her out of the way and leaving her spinning in circles through the air. Rainbowdash got a bit dizzy but quickly recovered. "Hey! What's the big idea Whitemane?!"

Rainbowdash thought that Whitemane was just fooling around until she saw him collapse to the ground. The she looked to the voidling under the rubble, it laughed in a sinister voice and it's life faded away after that. Rainbow saw the bow in it's hands and realized what happened...Whitemane took the arrow for her. She rushed towards Whitemane and so did the entire town. the fate of the hero was a mystery now.

"Gaah, what are you all looking at? It's just s scratch." Said Whitemane and got up, revealing the arrow that was stuck in his wing.

The hero was alright, and everyone around him took a deep breath of satisfaction, realizing that all is well.

"Phew! Don't you ever scare me like that again!" Rainbowdash yelled at Whitemane.

"Sorry, i'll try to catch the arrow with my flank next time then." Joked Whitemane

The ponies around him laughed.

"You...you took an arrow for me." Rainbowdash quietly said to Whitemane.

"The life of a pegasus is worth a lot more than a broken wing....i'm sure any other would have done the same in my place."

"But you couldn't have known that it would hit you in the wing...you pushed me out of the way risking your own life."

"Well what can i say....i'd rather die for a reason than live without one....i couldn't bare to watch you die Rainbowdash....not after what we've been through."

"I never thought i'd say something like this to another pony...but....i would have done the same for you."

Rainbowdash put her hoof on whitemanes cheek, and Whitemane did the same for her, the two pegasi stared into each others eyes and slowly drew their faces towards each other. The look in their eyes explained everything....they were in love. The crowd stood silent as they looked upon the two.

And in just a few second, the crowd was already cheering loudly as the two pegasi pulled each other towards themselves and held each other in their hooves as they engaged a kiss that lasted for 10 seconds flat. The two pegasi had the same thought on their minds right now "Who woulda thought, that I, a pegasus as free as the wind itself would be one to take such a step so early."

Both pegasi thought that they would spend their entire life single, and that their only love would be speed...and gambling for Whitemane...But right now they simply didn't care. The feelings they had for each other were stronger than anything else on their minds. The rest of the mane 6 were both happy and confused.

"Well i'll be, I never thought Rainbowdash would be that kind a pony. (Applejack)

"Oh my...that certainly was unexpected." (Rarity)

"Aww, that's so cute!" (Twilight)

"This is so exciting, aren't you excited? i'm so excited!" (Pinkie)

"Yay!" (Anonymous)

Whitemane was the first one to speak after the kiss ended. "Damn.....that felt good!"

"Good? That felt awesome!"

"We'll have to do this again sometime."

"Why not now."

"Coz right now we need to go greet Celestia."

"Ha! Does it look like i care?"

"Good point....go on without us guys, we'll catch up eventually." Whitemane laughed.

"Oh come on you two, we can't start the ceremony without you." Said Twilight.

"Alright, alright, hold your ponies."

The crowd walked to the town square and the two brothers walked on to the main platform to await Celestia arrival. Celestia soon arrived and landed right next to the two brothers. The brothers bowed to the princess.

"My friends..." Celestia spoke to the brothers, and they looked up to her. "You bow to no one." She continued, and then princess Celestia herself bowed before the two brothers, and the rest of the crowd repeated after her and also bowed.

Whitemane looked around, the night had passed and the day was here and the sun was shining brightly. Everyone was alright, the voidlings only harmed the buildings, and those will be restored in just a few days....the war was finally over, and so were his visions...finally nothing more troubled him.

"You did it brother. You saved Equestria" Said Blackmane.

"WE saved it. Couldn't have do it without you brother."

After everyone stopped bowing, Celestia spoke. "Dearly beloved Equestrians, we have gathered here today to celebrate our victory, and to thank those who have aided us in achieving it. Every single one of you played a role in defending our land this day, some of you more, and some of you less, and i thank you all, no matter how significant or minor was your role in this war. But above all, i wish to thank The two brothers. Whitemane, who has shown us hope, in a moment of despair, who united us all, and guided us to victory, and proved everyone, that together we can accomplish the impossible. And his brother Blackmane, who has shown hope to Whitemane himself. Even the strongest in faith, sometimes need a little inspiration. There's no force in Equestria that could stop these two when they're together, and they alone, were enough to end this war."

The crowd cheered loudly for the two brothers, and Celestia continued. "And so, it is with great honor that i grant these two the highest title that is in my power to grant, from this day forward, these two will be known as- "The fathers of Equestria"!"

The crowd cheered loud and long for the two, and the brothers started a conversation that no other could hear over the loud cheers.

"Heh, you only just arrived and suddenly you get the highest ranking in Equestria...quite i title, eh brother?"

"Of course, the titles nice, but as for you, i'd say your reward is only still waiting for you." Said Blackmane and turned his head towards the crowd and pointed at Rainbowdash. " Heh, and i always thought you'd be a free pegasus for life."

"So did i brother....and so did she. That happened to not be the only thing in which we were alike. But who's to say we can't be free together? One little kiss doesn't mean everything, does it now, brother?"

"He he, whatever you say brother.....But that was no LITTLE kiss." Laughed Blackmane.

"Perhaps...it didn't seem so long for me at least, but enough about me, what about you? You just arrived, and we haven't talked in years....the last time i saw you was before that little incident at our hometown, and since then we haven't talked....i hope your not planning on leaving again, are you?"

"Meh, i've traveled Equestria for long enough, i might just stay here for a while, a few day...weeks..months...years maybe....your townsfolk wouldn't mind, would they?"

"Of course they would, there can only be one father of Equestria in this town, they're probably gonna come after you with torches and pitchforks right after this ceremony."

"Really now? And what if we were to throw you out of the town instead?"

"What? After all these years you would just come to my town and throw me out of my own home?"

The brothers stared at each other for a short moment and then both started laughing loudly.

"You haven't changed a bit brother, still joking in nearly every sentence you say."

"And neither have you brother, you still seem to be the only one that understand my humor." Both brothers laughed again.

***

The ceremony soon ended, and as the evening came, Everyone was invited to a great feast, that took place right there in Ponyville....And what a feast it was. There was a table that just went from one end of the town to the other, and surprisingly, it was just enough to fit all the guests around it. Everyone ate and drank what they wanted,(mostly cider) and as the day got darker, the fun got bigger. From one end of the table, to the other, something fun was going on at all times and parts of the table.

Applejack and Rainbowdash were dancing on the table, Whitemane was teaching the cutie mark crusaders how to play poker, Pinkie Pie decided to literally brighten up old grumpy face and set Gildas tail on fire and the rest of the folk around them laughed as she ran around trying to put the flames out. The Flim Flam brother ran off because they didn't want to be blamed for getting everyone drunk with their cider. Berry Punch was out cold when everyone else only began drinking. Rarity couldn't stand drunk ponies coming up to her and talking nonsense every 10 seconds so she quietly tried to sneak away but Twilight caught her on the way.

When Twilight asked her where was she going she just made an excuse "I had to take a breath of fresh air..it's really crowded back there." And since she didn't want to admit the truth, she went back with Twilight.

After a while, Twilight offered Rarity a drink, at first she refused, but eventually she talked her into it.

"Come on, just one drink, it'll be fun i promise."

"Well...alright, but just one little drink!"

And after that "one little drink" It wasn't long before they got into the spirit of the party.

"You know...i never really wanted to do magic, but did my parents listen? NOOOOOO! They just had to make me go to that....awful place, and the judges wanted me to hatch that egg... i was 4 years old for Christs sake, i barely learned to turn book pages with my magic and now they want me to hatch an egg? what's up with that, i don't get it...i just don't..."

"You know it's funny that you mentioned it, i never really wanted to make dresses, i always wanted to be magic, but then that horn of mine just took me to those, petty...dirty....minor...beautiful, glamoring, SPECTACULAR gem stones! Ah who am i kidding, YES THIS IS WHAT I WANT! I'VE NEVER FELT HAPPIER IN MY LIFE!" Rarity shouted, and many of the ponies directed their attention towards her.

"What?! What are you all looking at?"

The ponies turned their attention away from her, a few ponies were heard talking in the crowd. "I see somepony really likes cider, he he he."

"I heard that!" Rarity yelled at the pony. "I ought to just...." And all of a sudden Rarity was sound asleep, Twilight tried to carry her home but also fell asleep on the way. "You know, for a big fashionista.... model...dress designer or whatever it is that you're doing, you're pretty heavy....Those stars sure do look pretty.....Zzzzzz"

Luckily Fluttershy was nearby and found the two. She knew that she couldn't get them home on her own so she called somepony she could trust with her - Whitemane. She woulda called Rainbowdash or Applejack but it seemed like they were having so much fun and she just didn't want to interrupt them.

and so Fluttershy did 2 good deeds at the same time, got the two drunken ponies home and saved the 3 fillies from becoming "The Cutie Mark Crusader Poker Stars".

"Thank you so much Whitemane, i'm so happy you could help me."

"You're quite welcome Fluttershy, i should be thanking you actually. What was i thinking? Teaching those three how to play poker...Uh oh...i think i had a bit too much cider, i gotta use the little colts room."

Whitemane didn't know what to do, he didn't want to run off, leaving Fluttershy alone, but luckily his brother was nearby and found them.

"Why hello there, and just what might you two be doing?...by the looks of it, i'd say the war hasn't ended yet."

"Glad you're here Blackmane...can you, um...hold this for me for a second?" Whitemane handed Twilight to Blackmane with a weird grin on his face, he wanted to laugh but at the same time felt a bit guilty for calling Twilight "this."

"Thanks brother, I'll be right back, uh uh uh uh...." Whitemane ran off into the forest, to break the line of sight of the two.

"This certainly is a fun night, isn't it? He he he." Oh pardon me, i believe i haven't introduced myself yet. "I am Whitemanes brother - Blackmane"

"Pleased yo meet you, Mister Blackmane."

"Aah, and you must me Fluttershy, am i right? Whitemane told me a lot about you."

"Yes, how'd you know? Oh, did he now? Nothing bad i hope, if i've upset him in some way then i'm very sorry for it."

"No...only good things. He's quite fond of you actually."

"Wha...what do you mean?"

"What i mean is....He talks about you even more than he does about Rainbowdash...It almost seems like his heart belongs to you, but his body belongs to Rainbowdash."

"But that's....i don't understand what you're trying to say."

At that moment they saw Whitemane walking back.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Blackamane whispered to Fluttershy.

"Hey guys, sorry about that, i just couldn't hold it in anymore."

"Right then, now that you're back, i think i'll leave the two of you where you were...i've got some unfinished business to attend to...have a good evening my friends." Blackmane walked back to the direction of the party. Fluttershy and Whitemane kept on walking towards Twilights library. After a moment of silence Fluttershy asked.

"Whitemane?"

"Hmm?"

"Your brother said that you....um..."

"Oh ponyfeathers....he told you about my feeling towards you, didn't he?"

Fluttershy nodded. "I'm glad you think highly of me, but i...um...i hope you're not planning on, um...becoming more than friends with me...Not that i don't like you, it's just that, um...I don't think..."

Whitemane placed his hoof over her mouth "You got it all wrong Fluttershy."

"What do you mean?"

"It's true, you mean a lot to me, and you have long since been more than just a friend to me. But i'm not about to ask you to be my marefriend... Even though ever since the moment i first saw you in Ponyville i wanted nothing more than that...Now i understand."

Whitemane and Fluttershy starred into each others eyes and Whitemane continued. "In my eyes you are a goddess, and i am not worthy of being your coltfriend...My feelings for you are strong, and i see that you have fallen from your cloud in heavens and this world of ours is not like the one you were used to. This world is full of many nasty and scary things that you might sometimes be scared of, and so i wish to be your guardian angel in this world."

"What? Oh no no no, you have it all wrong Whitemane. I am just a simple pony that loves animals, no godde...."

Twilight woke up and her moaning interrupted the conversation. "Mrrrrmph.....Wha....what happened?" Twilight asked looking around.

"Ah you're finally awake...seems like you had a tad too cider."

"Oh sweet Celestia...i passed out didn't i?"

"Yeah...and i think a good nights sleep will do you good right now."

Twilight looked around and saw Rarity on Fluttershys back. "At least i wasn't the only one....uuuughh, i'm tired....while you're at it...mind bringing me all the way to my bed Whitemane?"

"He he, sure."

"Thanks....i'll think of some way to repay you later...if i don't forget." Twilight laid her head down and was back into a deep sleep in a few seconds.

"Aww, ain't that cute? wait here Flutterhy, i'll be right back." Whitemane quietly stepped in Twilights library, went up the stairs and quietly tucked Twilight under her blankets, and went back quickly when he heard Spike moaning.

"Right, onward to Raritys house then, and just to make myself look like a gentlecolt, i'll take that load of your back."

"Oh, you mean Rarity, it's really not a problem, she's not that heavy at a..."

Whitemane just took Rarity off of Fluttershys back completely ignoring her words.

"Well if you insist..."

"I do...shall we march on then?"

"Oh, why of course." The two started walking towards Raritys hut.

"I don't know why you think of me in such a way Whitemane...i'm just an ordinary pony, there's nothing special about me, and i'm certainly not a goddess."

"You are in my eyes Fluttershy."

"But i...."

"Fluttershy, listen to me." Whitemane stopped and grabbed Fluttershys hooves with his hooves and starred deeply into her eyes. "You might not think highly of yourself, but i do, and so do the rest of your friends, and we all like you just the way you are and i'm not about to ask you to change, or admit anything...i just ask that you let me be your guardian angel."

Fluttershy blushed and tried to avoid eye contact with Whitemane.

"I do not even need your answer Fluttershy...not even voidlings can keep me from guarding you."

Fluttershy had no idea what to say or do but luckily for her Rarity woke up.

"Ugghhh, my head...what is...where...why am i at my hut?" Rarity looked around. "And why am i on your back....and for some reason i don't want to get off of you....did you ambush me?!"

"No, actually Twilight ambushed you and got you drunk with cider, and Fluttershy found you lying on the ground and saved you from mean, hungry forest wolves, and i helped her escort you and Twilight home."

Rarity gave a confused look to Fluttershy.

"*squeak*" Fluttershy smiled, and said nothing.

"Well in that case i must thank you for saving my life my dear friend, and i will most certainly find a way to repay you."

"But i...."

"No no no, i insist, and i don't want to hear any excuses....but right now i feel like spending the night on Whitemanes back...i'm just so tired that i don't care where i sleep right now, and Whitemanes back is just so soft, i don't even want to go back to bed...would you mind if i stay here Whitemane?"

"Not at all, go ahead." Whitemane laughed.

"Thanks...Zzzzzz"

"Right...i'll be right back Flutterhsy."

"Careful, don't wake Opal."

"Don't worry, i'm good with cats. Used to have one of my own some time ago." Whitemane quietly brought Rarity to her bed and went back, but when he got back outside, Fluttershy was gone.

"Fluttershy!" Whitemane yelled, starting to worry about her.

All of a sudden, Rainbowdash walked out from behind one of the trees. "She went back home Whitemane."

"Rainbowdash? What are you doing here?"

"I heard everything Whitemane...i've been following you since you left the table...you really care for that pony much..."

"I, um....uh..." Whitemane tried to think of something to explain his feeling for Fluttershy but before he could say something, Rainbowdash walked over to him and gave him a sincere hug.

"Thank you..."

"For what?..." Whitemane asked confusedly.

"For being so good towards her...she needs somepony that could look after her...maybe with you by her side she'll be safer...She is like a sister to me and i couldn't bare to see anything bad happen to her."

"Same goes for me." Said a voice coming from the woods.

"Applejack?" Asked both Rainbow and Whitemane, surprised by the sudden appearance.

"Yea, after y'all left the fun pretty much just ended for me, and i thought i'd go home but you just happened to be going the same way, and so i followed ya and happened to hear ya two talking. Am glad to hear somepony is ready to look after lil ol Fluttershy."

Applejack placed her hoof on Whitemanes shoulder and looked into his eyes. "Can ya do that partner? Can ya make sure nothing bad ever happens to our shy lil friend?"

"It would be an honor to be her guardian angel."

"Angel? Hah, now that sure is a fancy title ya got there. Now that you reminded me, she does happen to have a bunny named "angel" but that rabbit's nothin but trouble if ya ask me."

"Hah, yea, Angel's a spoiled little brat." Rainbowdash laughed. "I still remember when Fluttershy saved him from that diamond dog some while ago...and yet after all that she's done fro him he still dares kick a bowl of ice cream in her face....some angel he is....."

"Damn it...stop encouraging me...i've always wanted to try rabbit soup." All three ponies laughed.

"That sure was a good laugh, but jokes aside this time Whitemane...stay away from angel...Fluttershy wouldn't let anything happen to him....he might be a selfish lil bastard, but Fluttershy still loves him as if he was her child."

"No worries, i'll stay away from him."

"Good." Applejack yawned. "Dang i'm tired...if you two don't mind, i think i'll be going."

"Yeah, i don't think i'll be able to stay on my hooves much longer too." Rainbowdash yawned too.

"Right, i guess then i'll see you two tomorrow, eh?"

"Sure."

"Later y'all."

"Cya."

"Later you two."

The three ponies each went separate ways, but Applejack suddenly turned around. "Oh and Whitemane...thanks again."

"Yeah...thanks Whitemane...appreciate it" Rainbowdash added.

"Don't mention it girls. It's my pleasure." And with that they all went to their homes and were sound asleep after a few minutes.

***

Things in Ponyville were soon back the way they were before the voidling attack- The houses restored, the metal scraps left behind by the voidling were all dumped into the pit from which they came, a giant statue was built in the middle of Ponyville, in the honor of the two brothers- fathers of Equestria.

And Legionnaire got buried not far from Ponyville with the words "Death is the beginning for most...but for me it was the end" written on his gravestone. Everything was going on like the war never even happened...it's surprising how it went without casualties. At long last the two brother had the time to talk...So they just spent the entire afternoon lying on the clouds talking.

"You know brother..i've been meaning to ask you for a while...what's keeping you in Ponyville?" Asked Blackmane.

"Nothing."

"Then why are you still here?"

"I've got many reasons to be here."

"Can you name some?"

"Sure, one of them keeps passing over our heads, leaving a rainbow trail behind her every half an hour, one of them is lying on a cloud next to me, another is down on the ground taking care of animals, another might just be preparing a welcome party for you...."

"Those are living ponies my brother...i asked for a reason."

"These ponies ARE my reason brother...the reason i want to be here...the reason i can't leave...and the reason i even still live."

"I stand corrected...i guess that's a reason better than any other. But i think we've been lying here long enough brother...up for another race?"

"Only after that card game you promised me."

"Bah! I thought you would have forgotten by now. Very well, get the card set out."

Rainbowdash happened to be flying by. "Hey! Don't start without me!"

"Weren't even planning on it Dashie."

After a while, the three ponies were at the end of their third round, and Whitemane revealed his hoof, which was full of aces. "Mares and gentlecolts...i believe that's a Hattrick."

"Damn it Ace...you're no fun playing with."

"You're the one who always loses" Whitemane laughed hysterically after seeing Rainbows face after that joke.

"Well how about a race then Rainbow? Do you think you could beat me at that?"

"You're on!"

"You're both on!" Blackmane added.

And the three ponies started a race together. The fathers of Equestria and Equestrias best flier. And as the three flew over the skies of Equestria they all stopped in mid air to look around at the land they live in, Whitemane said quietly.

"This is Equestria, this land belongs to us."

"Guests we welcome." Blackmane continued

"But intruders we drive back to from whence they came." Rainbowdash finished the phrase.

THE END

EPILOGUE
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The last thunderbolt

EPILOGUE

And so the three raced on. They raced and raced again, until they were only 2 left. But Whitemane knew that Blackmane wouldn't stay in Ponyville for long, and Rainbowdash had a hunch too, but that didn't keep them from racing together, in fact, all they did lately was just dash around through the sky, apart from loving to spend time a bit more....privately, every now and then. You would think that the two would probably settle down eventually and start a family, but the two had absolutely no intention of doing so....at least for now. It would be hard to imagine a Rainbowdash doing nothing but sitting home all day, doing chores and cooking.....No, the two were born to be free, and so was Blackmane.

Nothing really kept Blackmane in Ponyville, and one day he just left after thinking about that. Rumor has it that he restored the town of Coltifornia back to it's former state, but he didn't stay either, coz he had a bad feeling of what would happen if somepony found out that he was the reason why the town needed restoring in the first place. Blackmane was as independent as the wind itself, his home was neither Ponyville, nor Appleloosa, nor Coltifornia.....His home was Equestria itself, and most of the time he wouldn't spend the night in the same place twice in a row, and over the day he traveled thousands of miles, seeing him pass over Ponyville was not a rare sight. Every now and then he stopped by to say hello to Whitemane and the others, but never really stayed for long....Although somepony supposedly saw him drinking tea at Fluttershys hut a few times.

After the war, all the allies returned home. The griffon kingdom forged an alliance with Princess Celestia. Nopony knew if the diamond dogs actually found any spoils of war....or anything at all that they could use for that matter. The rest of the allies returned to their homes as if nothing had happened. The Wonderbolts offered Whitemane a place at their side, but Whitemane refused saying that he has had bad experience with being a part of a teams of flyers. Most of the Wonderbolts didn't know what he meant by that but Spitfire sure did. Spitfire was the one that made the offer, and tried to hand him the Wonderbolts goggles, but when he refused she just smiled and said "I understand" and then she gave him a sincere hug and said "it's good to have you back Whitemane"

"I'ts good to be back." Replied Whitemane.

"And so ends the story of the sons and fathers of Equestria." Said an old pony in a rocking chair, and the small fillies and foals starting clapping for him.

"Wow!"

"Awesome story mister!"

"What a shame it was all lies!" Said one of the more spoiled foals.

"Was not!" The young ones started arguing.

"Oh yeah? How do you know it was true?"

"There's a statue of the two brothers right outside my home."

"Whitemane and Rainbowdash are still racing through the skies very often, and i still see Blackmane passing by every now and then."

"Just coz he has a black trail doesn't mean he's Blackmane, and Whitemane might just be an ordinary every day, non-hero pony."

"What about the statue right outside my home?"

"Yeah well, that could be from anything, it doesn't necessarily have to be from winning a war. The voidling thing might have just been made up!"

"What about Legionnaires grave?"

"As if it was hard to write that on just some random ponys grave."

"But..."

"I've heard enough lies one day." Said the foal, walking towards the exit. "And everyone knows that ponies only wear sunglasses to try and look cool, would such a hero wear them?" Said the foal, walking out the door while looking back at the others, and accidentally bumped into Whitemane who happened to be taking a walk with Twilight right outside the house.

"I don't wear my sunglasses to try and look cool, kid." Said Whitemane, and lowered his head to match the height of the foal. "I wear them to hide the scars in my eyes, for not everypony could bare to see the things that i have seen in my life." The foal got slightly ashamed of himself, and Whitemane walked off as if nothing had happened.

"Shame on you! you should know better than to talk that way about a father of Equestria!" Twilight said to the foal and followed Whitemane.

The old Stallion cleared his throat and spoke. "Well, i think you kids best be on your way then, your parents are probably starting to worry about you anyways. This was no short story time. and don't ever forget to tell this story to your friends and family, we must keep the story of the sons and fathers of Equestria alive."

"Will do gramps."

"I'm telling my brother right away!"

"Thanks for the story mister."

The fillies and foals left the old stallions house one by one. After they were all gone, Whitemane came back and stepped in. The two looked at each other and smiled.

The old stallion threw away the blanket that was covering his body and revealed the body of a stallion in his best years, took off his glasses and removed his fake mustache and beard.

"Having fun, eh brother?" Whitemane laughed.

"Well somepony has to keep the story alive. And i'd say my job here is done." Blackmane laughed back to him.

The two brothers placed their hooves on each others shoulders. "I'ts good to see you again brother."

"Likewise."

"When are you planning on leaving again?"

"I might just stick around for a bit this time...i've done enough traveling around Equestria to last 5 lifetimes."

"That's good to hear brother, and it so happens that i'm not the only one who's been awaiting your return....care to take a look outside?"

"Why not."

The two brothers stepped outside of the house and found themselves surrounded by the mane six who were happily all staring at them.

"Ready for your welcome party brother?"

"As ready as i'll ever be, he he." The brothers started laughing, and the mane six joined them for a laugh, and they laughed, and laughed, until i ran out of ideas for continuing this story.

THE END