Rise of the Angel of Death

"He looks almost like him, you know?" The other nodded.

"Yes can't believe it was real." The two nodded. "The council is meeting we will lead you to them."

Sunset walked beside Mal and whispered into his ear. "What do you think they meant by 'He looks like him'?"

"I don't know, but I have a feeling that we'll find out pretty soon. My guess, it’s some sort of ancient prophecy, which means, I could be taken for some sort of great hero, or some sort of destroyer." Sunset frowned before whispering back.

"Mal now's not the time for one of your jokes."

"I wasn't joking. Sunset, after everything we've been through, is an ancient prophecy really that far-fetched?" Sunset thought about it for a moment before looking at the group of girls they had been travelling with. She did have to admit that their lives were rather weird.

Inside the castle things seemed more advance yet simpler than the dragkin's in some ways and like the earthern in others. For instance the castle had wooden walls with stone inside to help fortify it. The fire that lit up showed nine council members they looked at the beings being let in by the guards. "What is this." One of the council members, an older one said. One of the guards walked up and whispered into the council member's ear.

"He looks like him sirs." The guard whispered into one member’s ear.

"Who are you?" The member asked.

"Malthael." His wings then formed. "I am the Angel of Death." The council stood up looked at him with wide eyes. They moved to the corner and whispered with each other. Finally one turned to him.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

"Well I'm guessing you have an invader problem? I've been helping the others across the isles with their troubles already my group and I have crippled their operations in the biggest island, destroyed them in the middle sized one and are now here to help destroy or cripple them here."

The council after a bit more discussion finished. "So you say you are death itself?" One asked

`"Kinda I'm actually an aspect of death." A few whispered.

"Well then Great One, we do have a problem." The council member showed him a map of the island they were on and a few of the smaller ones. "True these invaders are a problem but they haven't invaded the island itself, instead they have fortified an isle around here and have their fleets stationed there before they move troops into the other. Several villages are sometimes raided by one or two ships, we were debating whether to attack them now that we found their fortress isle but our fleet is small and our ships weaker than theirs."

"Whoa, what's with all this 'Great One' talk?" Mal asked, already having an idea of the answer.

"You do not know?" One of the councilors asked.

"No, I don't, would mind filling me in?"

"Very well, for many generations we have passed down tales of one with wings of lightened darkness who would unite all of the northern isles under one banner. You seem to match the description, especially since you have been helping the other islands with their invaders." Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn't believe Mal had been right about the prophecy. Mal just let out a sigh.

"Look, I don't think I'm the guy you're looking for. I'm just some guy that stumbled into power a very long time ago. And now I'm using it to help those that need it. Now, let's plan our attack."

The council members had a basic map of the fortress.

"Well the docks hold their water born fleet but they also have a sky docks with airships coming along. However no new airships have been coming since our scouts found them which we have no idea what's going on, our ships are weaker and our fleet lesser then theirs, finally their thick walls and air superiority is something we cannot get around." The youngest one also added his two cents.

"There are guards everywhere, elite ones as well and mercenaries and even a few pirates, if that wasn’t enough there are pegasi and clouds that can strike us down finally we believe them to also have some of these." An image of a ballista was seen. Even Mal started to feel like this wasn't going to end well. Suddenly a messenger came running up.

"Council members we have more visitors, you will not believe this." Coming in were Ottio with a few earthern, the goblin chief from before as well as the dragkin lord.
"Malthael looks like your here as well laddie." Ottio said with a grin.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Why are you all here?" She asked almost knowing the answer.

"We are here to drive off the invaders form our lands once and for all." The goblin said.

"We all had a meeting before we came to give the vyrkul help, and we find you Angel of death." The dragkin said. They each had their swords, or in the case of Ottio battle ax.

"We have brought forces and even ships to help with the invasion, and lad, we each don't need to argue about who will lead us." The each gave a bow with their weapons in front of Mal. Slowly even the council did so.

'Stupid prophecy, making me some stupid hero-king," Mal thought. "Rise, all of you. There is no need to bow before me." Mal said with as much authority as he could muster. "As far as I am concerned we are all equals here. Now, I will lead us in this battle against your invaders. But, I don't think I'm someone you'd want running your nations. Now, we're going to need a lot of work to prepare our forces, and I don't know how long we have to do it. I want to have the navies and ground forces to train together for a while, so we don't have any confusion on the battlefield. And did any of you bring carpenters and smiths?" The assembled leaders nodded earning a grin from the angel. "Good, I have a few ideas that might make our ships more than a match for our invaders."

The ships were being remade and fixed up, with upgrades to their hulls and sizes. Mal also helped the blacksmiths developed something new. Steel something that was a bit better than the iron armor. Another thing was an alteration to the bow. The crossbow as he called it was far better at armor piecing. Using such things as sulfur and tar he created for them a kind of hand held fire explosive. The armor was upgraded with steel mail and a few plated armor sets. Finally, a new weapon was created, a long pole with a ball of metal at the end, the mace. The shields were changed into steel as well. With his help the carpenters managed to create larger objects. One was the catapult and finally a mini ballista. The ships where loaded up as the training was under way. Turned out some earthen and some goblins and a few vyrkuls had magical ability. Sunset, Moon and Trixie helped them with that, giving them basic magical training with a few getting some more advance styles. Finally by the month's end the sun was setting. A whole month spent and now the fleet was ready, the armies ready, and the forces outfitted.

"So our plan is this, we need to eliminate the fleet first, we are attacking at night so we can get the fleet into three parts. One part with the catapults’ job is to smash the towers to take out the ballista, the dragkin with Trixie will take out the pegasi, a part of the fleet will take on the ships, Moon and Sunset with elite dragkin will attempt to remove the airships while I lead an assault after smashing the walls down with the catapult afterwards everyone will focus on defeating the troops inside the fortress."
"Are there any questions or concerns?" Mal asked, looking up from the map. No one said anything and Mal continued. "Alright, if anyone wants to back out, now would be the time. This will be a tough battle, even with all the progress we've made we're sure to suffer a lot of casualties. If you want to leave and focus on protecting your own lands I won't think anything less of you."

"My people have no intentions of leaving." Ottio said. "You came to my people when we thought all hope was lost. You gave us the means to ensure our survival and asked for next to nothing in return. I speak for the rest of my kind when I say that we would follow you into the maw of a beast if you asked us." The other leaders cheered in affirmation and Mal grinned at them.

"If that's how you all feel then let's head out. We'll show those Prench bastards what happens when you try to take the Northern Isles!" Mal cried, earning another round of cheers from the assembled leaders.

The ships moved into position and the island the fortress was seen over the horizon. The ships started to get into formation. On one ship, Trixie got out her broom and was ready to fly with it and crossbow wielding dragkin. Moon and Chrysalis were reading for their movement. Finally, the catapults readied and fire. The sleepy guards in the towers where awoke by the attack the tower was starting to frame and slowly brake. The wall nearby as well was under attack. In the air the pegasi readied there clouds. One had an arrow shot through their eye as the crossbows rained down bolts. Moon grabbed a cloud to help as the airships started to take off and the ships moved to attack the other ships, the small ballista firing at the ships. A few mini trebuchets fired barrel set with a fire the tar in the barrels were set alight and a few holding explosives boomed on ships.
Malthael stood at the bow of the lead ship. He called out directions to the catapult and ballista operators, and reveled in each hit that his forces landed. Malthael scanned the waters and made sure that the enemy fleet didn't box them in. He constantly called for the movement of the ships so they could box in enemy ships and keep them in the shallower water near the fortress. Malthael stole a quick glance at the battle in the air. The airborne forces were making great progress, and would most likely be the first to enter the fortress. Still, his heart sank with each Dragkin that he saw fall. Malthael shook his head, he needed to focus if he was going to lead the isles to victory. He returned to directing the ships and called out for the catapults to bring out the heavy explosives.

The barrels of explosive cocktail were launched by the catapults. The hit helped weaken the walls which soon started to come down after the creamed and weakened walls the stones were launched and the walls started to finally give way. He made sure to get the walls to fall form near the ground as there rubble started to form the base where they would invade. The ballista and mini trebuchets fired into the forces attempting to stop the invaders inside. Above them an explosion could be seen as the airships started to fall. A ship started to sink from the Northern Isles fleets while several other ships were in the middle of boarding ships from the Prench fleet. A lightning bolt hit an airship as it slowly fell into the water taking down an enemy ship. Finally, the ships landed on the rubble and Malthael with his weapons at the ready had only one thing to say. "Charge!" With that goblin dragkin, vyrkul, and earthern followed him into battle.

Malthael led the charge, using his wings to propel himself along the ground. The Prench forces had bows at the ready and fired at the assaulting forces. "Shields up!" Malthael cried, and in response his forces formed a shield wall like he had taught them. The arrows sunk harmlessly into his army's shields and kept them up as they slowly marched through the hole in the fortress. Malthael smiled as he saw the looks on the ponies' faces. He held his sickles out to the sides and slowly led his shield wall to meet the enemy. Once they were within a few feet of the ponies Mal raced forward and slashed at the nearest pony's head. He then lifted up off the ground to avoid a spear that had been aimed for his chest. The rest of his forces met the enemy and the real fighting began.

The battle was joined as the steel weapons started the turn the fight in the northern isle favor. A few northern ships got into docks, firing crossbows, ballista and even a catapult. Above the fight, arrows from the sky struck them as the dragkin fired from above with Trixie, who helped confuse the enemy with her illusions. Lightning struck the ground. Moon stomped on the clouds she had taken from the pegasi letting their lightning loose, as elite dragkin forces attacked the enemy. Finally, the elite unicorns and the mercenaries came out with a little something extra, man bull things wielding massive swords and axes cut into his men. Malthael dodged one of them and went for the closest being, his blade plunged into his neck and he removed the soul as fast as he could before moving around him and unleashing a soul sweep on the guard behind him.

Malthael kept fighting the bullmen, using his flight to give him the advantage over them. Even as he fought he kept an eye on the rest of the battle so he wouldn't be caught off guard like he was last time. Malthael caught a bullman's axe between his sickles and wrenched it from his grasp. Then, Malthael swung both of his sickles, tearing open the bullman's throat.

The fighting was starting to go in the Northern's favor on the land. At sea some of the northern ships were starting to fall and a few boarded. But those being boarded were pushing back the boarder and boarded the others’ ships. Several ships were on fire. However, with the dragkin jumping form ship to ship, raiding the enemy with crossbows, and a few with blades, the battle at sea was turning in favor of the isles as well. Malthael landed to be rushed at by ponies and diamond dogs. He let loose his death fog. Form the skies tar let loose and a few explosion form around them as the bombs dropped. The ships were set alight by boiling tar and explosives. The unicorns attempted to guard but were being cut down. Malthael slashed and unleashed a soul sweep on those to his side their burning bodies soon pierced and souls removed from some.

The fighting soon started to die down as the ponies kept fighting. Malthael himself started to slow his attacks and consumed less souls as the fighting soon ceased as the last Prench ship went up in flames and those captured were soon killed. The day broke over the horizon. The bodies of the dead being loaded up. Malthael saw that those injured were being healed while others were dying. He walked and found Ottio resting on the wall blood coming out of him at an alarming rate.
"Well laddie, yea did it." He said with deep breaths. With him was the goblin chief also bleeding the dragkin lord barely conscious and the oldest Vyrkul council member half dead. Malthael got down to them all.

"I'm so sorry." Malthael started. The earthern had a bit of a laugh.

"Don't be laddie you did something no one has ever done." He said pointing to the other three races. "You united the isles, you pushed these invaders back, in the short time I’ve known these three I can honestly call them brothers and you a friend." He coughed a bit. "Maybe can you do us one last favor, we wanted to come with you to either see the world or kill the scumbag who started this, and seeing how we are dying there’s only one way." Malthael looked at his sickles. He nodded standing up his glow and the fog washed over them, slowly their bodies turned to dust and decay and their souls were absorbed.

The girls ran up. "Trixie found a map, we can head back to Equestria and even Prance." Trixie started. Malthael turned to them. His face that of sheer determination.

"Then let's go.” With that the isles’ people watched as a small airship set off, and with it their greatest heroes Trixie Lulamoon, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis Changeling, Sunset Shimmer and Malthael, the Angel of Death, now Malthael the hero.

-----------Back at Prance the lord general looked at everything. He had gotten word that the fortress was most likely destroyed but it didn't matter now. He held a smile on his face through the dark rain lightning showed his shadow with alicorn wings and the glowing horns shadow faced north a bit.

---------Luna walked by her sister’s room. "Luna what's going on why am I in my room and can't get out?" Celestia voice said. Form inside the room. Luna breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sister you... Ahh." As she opened the door she was blasted back, in the door way was Princess Celestia, no Solar Flare. Her fur had taken on a pale, slightly golden hue. Her eyes were now red with serpent-like slits for pupils. Her mane now looked like a raging inferno and instead of her normal raiment’s she was now wearing crimson and golden armor.

"I must thank you, as a reward, you die last sister." With that Solar Flare burst through the castle.

At the Equestria Prance shared zone the guard post was suddenly a light as Prance's guard started an attack. The commander there turned to two pegasi. "Send word to the other princesses, send word to the Elements now!"

-----------------------Twilight and her friends were coming back from a picnic when they saw that ponies from Ponyville were running. By the time they got there. The tree house wall exploded. With fire dancing by her hooves, walking out was Solar Flare with the Elements' box. "It's so good to be queen!" She laughed. Her wings spread and she took off the flames increasing like a fan.

---------------On the other side of the galaxy, dashing through a star system Discord suddenly felt a huge disturbance in the chaos force. "Spike looks like we have to head back. The dragon was wearing an outfit of Discord’s design, (Trek captain) and looked at him.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes, enough cruising, time to go maximum!" With that Discord raced to Equestria.