The Fight for Equestria

Chapters

The Fight for Equestria

The Fight for Equestria

The Fight for Equestria

Prologue

It was a normal day in Ponyville, and Jack Spencer had just gotten out of school. The little stallion walked, or more accurately hovered, home with a troubled look in his eyes. He proceeded back to the great cloud manor just outside of Ponyville where he lived with his mother and father. He flew in through the great arching doorway and past the fountain of Rainbow Spectra, where he saw his father.

"Hello there son, how was school?" his father asked.

"Dad..." Jack began, "why is my name different from the other foals at school?"

Puzzled, his father replied, "I don't think I understand what you mean; all of your classmates have different names."

"I mean, why is my name so different? The other ponies have names like Storm Brewer, and Apple-smack, names of things their parents are familiar with, and names that may eventually resemble their cutie marks; I mean even mom's name is Rainbow Dash and her special talent is speed. Me... I'm just Jack Spencer."

His father looked at him with understanding eyes.

"I now see what you mean."
Jack's Father walked over to a painting on one of the cloud walls and removed it to reveal a hidden compartment. He brought out an old box that was filled with strange, old objects. Jack watched as his father rummaged around for a bit before removing a book. The book had a leather cover with drawstrings to tie it closed.

"I've been waiting to show you this book, my little stallion."

Inside the book was filled with writing and there were pictures pasted on some of the pages. One picture in particular caught Jack's eye: it was of a strange creature he had never seen before. The animal was like the monkey he had seen at Fluttershy's cottage before, except this one was bigger. It was standing next to a pony in the picture; it stood on two legs and was easily twice the size of the nearby pony. Like the monkey, it had five little appendages on the end of each limb where the front two hooves would be, if it were a pony. It was hairless except for a small patch of fur on its head, and an even smaller patch starting to grow on its face. It was dressed in an ornate armor similar to the armor he had seen Canterlot guards wear while escorting Princess Celestia whenever she came to visit Ponyville. The bipedal creature looked so strange, yet oddly familiar: even though this was the first time he had ever seen such a being, he felt like he had known the creature his whole life.

"Dad... what is that thing" Jack asked.

"That thing," Jack's father removed the picture and held it close for both to see clearly, "that thing is... me".

Chapter 1: We Came as Humans

My son, Jack Spencer Dash Atwood, I write this account for you. One day when I think you are ready (and that are you reading this shows I believe that time is now) you will know of your heritage through this brief history of the war that almost destroyed this land we call home. Even though as I write this, you are just a newborn foal, there is so much I know you will expect to learn about yourself, where you came from, and why your name is unique. This is my story… your legacy.

Our world, or should I say my world, was Earth; a beautiful place, not as magnificent as Equestria, but still beautiful. It was here that I was a human; one of the biped primates with intelligence to shape the world into whatever we saw fit. We were, however, still animals, and all animals are territorial. We separated the land, and we would fight each other over small differences; slaughtering each other out of pride, envy, and greed. We even got to the point where at any time we could end all life on our planet with the simple click of a button. Our world was harsh and cruel--we were a warrior race. Now I know that this is a lot to take in, but this description of our world and its people are why you are here today. Our way of life was simple: as a whole we were peaceful unless provoked, but our pride caused contentions amongst ourselves. Society told you what you needed to do in order to be successful; society told you what you should and shouldn’t like, and if you were different, society told others to persecute you.

Now on Earth, Equestria was a fictional world, or so we thought. It was the setting of a T.V. show (similar to a play as you may be familiar with) about six mares: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Apple Jack, and Twilight Sparkle. In the show, the "mane six" would go on fantastic adventures and always learn something about the magic of friendship. Equestria was depicted as a beautiful, peaceful place, which is probably why me and other men (colts, but human) entered into its fold. However, the show was thought to be meant for little girls (fillies, but again, human) and because of that we were all persecuted. We didn’t care, however, because the stories of Equestria made us happy; so we put up with all the hate and we united into a herd, one giant family, and we called ourselves bronies.

____________

It was a normal day; at least that’s what I remember anyway. It had been two months since the end of the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Brony kind was in a state of hibernation, and the only new things about Equestria were fan-made fictional stories, animation, and music. It was a dark time for us.

I had just gotten home from work, and I checked the mail. I was surprised to find a letter, because I didn’t normally receive mail and it made my day. There was no return address on the letter, and it was sealed with a wax seal. It was fancy-looking, ornate, almost regal. As much as the envelope made me happy, it was the inside that overwhelmed me with joy. Inside was a ticket to Bronycon; the massive gathering of all things Equestrian; and I had received a free ticket. With nothing stopping me, I attended and it was a wonderful experience. Upon arriving, I met up with all of my brony friends: Jack, Hunter, Gabriel, Spencer, Brian, Jon, Matthew, and Luke. This was the first time any of us had actually met each other--we lived some distance away from the others--but we knew each other like old friends. We talked and all discovered we had all gotten free tickets. This was sort of strange, but we didn’t care: we were at bronycon. If anything really surprised us, it was the turnout for the convention. In total just over two million bronies attended the gathering, but no one cared because we were amongst kin; we were, in a sense, one big family.

The first day of the convention was awesome; we listened to live performances by Wooden Toaster, The Living Tombstone, Aviators the Omnipony, and many other "brony" musicians. The second day was just as good--this time we saw teaser clips of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Season three. However, the third day, none of us were prepared for what was about to happen--we were all crammed in the main arena when, all of a sudden, the lights dimmed; a single light shined in the center of the arena, and what it illuminated, none of us could believe. We saw two horses: one was white with a flowing rainbow mane with what appeared to be a sun stamped on her flank: the other was black with a starry mane like the night sky and a crescent moon on her flanks. I'm sure you recognize the description, my son, and we did as well. The moment we realized what we were looking at, we all bowed; they were our princesses, Luna and Celestia.

Celestia addressed us first. “Arise bronies; we are honored to be in the presence of so many loyal subjects such as you.”

Luna spoke up. “We have come to thee with grim tidings, however.”

All of us were confused; what did she mean by grim? Celestia spoke again, answering our unspoken question.

“Equestria is at war. The changelings and the griffons fight us; both nations attack us at the will of the mighty Discord.” Celestia’s voice shook as she said this, and she started to cry. This troubled me, because Celestia always seemed so strong in the face of danger. The princess gathered some semblance of resolve and continued.

“Our forces have thinned and our cities have begun to fall. The era of peace and harmony in Equestria has ended and all pony kind faces extinction.”

No one could believe what we heard and the crowd erupted in panicked chatter, all but interrupting the princess.

Luna spoke over the din. “Bronies, we need thee. Ye are our only hope; ye are Equestria’s last line of defense. We call upon thee for thine support--” here she too started to cry, “Please help us. We have nopony else to turn to.”

What happened then I will never forget. I’m not sure how, but it felt like the whole brony crowd thought the same thing, we all felt each other, we all knew. Equestria was a great part of our lives; it gave us joy, it made us happy when we were sad. It gave us so much, and we were willing to give back. Even though no one said a word, the same thought resounded through us all: one by one, we all fell to one knee and bowed our heads to the princesses.

“Do you accept our call to arms?” Luna asked with new-found strength. She held her head high.

Unanimously the crowd shouted back, “We accept!”

________________

Celestia and Luna had used their magic to rip a hole from our dimension to theirs. This was one of the biggest choices we would ever have to make; a day in Equestria was equal to one year back on Earth--that meant that home, family, and well, everything else we had would be old and out-dated after spending a month in Equestria. Once we went in, there would be no reason to come back. Because of this, only about 30% of the original crowd decided to actually go to Equestria: my brony friends and I were among them. We took a few minutes and contacted our loved ones. We said it was just to say hi, but we all knew what it meant and we couldn’t bear to tell them the truth; then we left.

Before I knew it, we were in Equestria. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it with my own eyes. I had seen the show, but it’s always different when it’s right there in front of you and you can touch it. The portal from Earth to Equestria spat us out in Canterlot. The capitol city was incredible, at least what I could see of it. As we arrived we were herded like cattle by Canterlot guards. We walked the streets of the miniature city (for we humans were all easily twice the size of every pony around), Unicorn civilians stopped to watch our little procession--it couldn't quite be called a march--and we watched them. This was a first encounter for all of us, and we didn’t want to miss a bit of it. We were led to the castle, and then from there, we were directed to the crystal caves underneath Canterlot. The mines were big; we were directed to a gigantic underground chamber, easily twenty kilometers long in every horizontal direction and one kilometer high. We came to the center and we were met by the Captain of the Royal Guard, a gallant pony named Shining Armor.

“Fellow… beings,” he said, with some hesitancy, “We have brought you here to the underground caves for your training."

Training? I thought to myself, We have only been here for thirty minutes at the most, and now we’re going to start training?

“As I’m sure you have been informed, Equestria has become desperate,” Shining Armor continued, “The armies of the enemy are already at Manehatten, and will continue until they reach Canterlot. We estimate this gives us thirty days at best until they are at our front door; however, we don’t have thirty days to train.”

I was confused. If there wasn’t enough time to train, how could there be any possible way an army of ragtag bronies could do anything?

“That’s why, with approval from Celestia and Luna, I have been authorized to do two things. One: the caves have been altered with a magically created field so that a day outside will feel equal to a year inside the caves. Two: we are going to implant each of you with memories from warriors of your… eh, kind, using a memory spell developed by me for this specific occasion.”

We were then told that we would all be in the caves for a year. If we excelled in our training, we would stay for another year, and then if we were exceptional, we would stay for a third. Basically, it was a competition; we would be well fed, and have a place to sleep, but other than that, we were all enemies: it was every man himself. All we were told to do was fight each other; when we got bored, we were told to fight; if we made friends and wanted to talk, we were to fight while talking; If we were to get into arguments, we were to settle things with our fists. In addition to the time shift field in the caves, an anti-mortality field was placed as well. This meant that we could use weapons (and we would be provided weapons after our ancestors' memories were awakened within us) and we could stab, choke, and bash each other all we liked without dying. We could still experience pain, however, so there was still motivation to avoid attacks.

Me and my brony friends joined up, and we were all given, or more accurately, we remembered the memories of our warrior ancestors. What I saw I can’t describe, but what I quickly learned is that I was able to use a midsized sword and a light shield most effectively, and did extremely well with a bow. Because of our different heritages, I and my friends all were experts with different weapons: Spencer performed best with a spear and a large shield; Jon did well with two medium-sized swords; Jack was also good with a bow, but he mainly specialized in stealth, moving silently and attacking with daggers; Hunter was able to use a large war hammer gracefully; Brian found himself at home with throwing knives for both close and long range; Matthew used a scythe, a large two-handed, three-foot bladed staff; Gabriel fought with dual battleaxes; and lastly Luke, who fought with a sword-staff, a long pole with sword blades on both ends.
Me and my brony friends spent the first year training with each other. The training was brutal, hard, and genius; there was really no better way to train. The first day we were all cookie dough; after three weeks we might as well have been carved out of wood; after six months we became casted from steel. The end of the first year came fast. After evaluation, my brony friends and I all were selected to stay for another year.

The second year was a little different. This time we had all been assigned to groups; as luck would have it, me and my brony friends were all assigned to the same group. Each group ranged from six to ten people, and the total number of fighters from the first year had shrunk from just over six hundred thousand to just under ten thousand. Each group was then given a dragon egg; we were then told that this year, we were to work together as groups and steal two other dragon eggs from enemy groups. This year was also a little bit different from the first in that we had to fend for ourselves; we still couldn’t be killed, but we had find our own food and make our own camps. Since it’s hard to find food in a cave--unless you eat rocks, but humans don't do that--Shining Armor had altered the cave, and it became something that resembled the Everfree Forest, complete with the monsters. Quickly we discovered that this year was going to be harder, for the mediocre fighters had left, and the more challenging groups remained; we also learned that it was better to keep moving instead of having a permanent camp. However, despite the increase in difficulty, the year went by rather uneventfully--that is to say every day was about the same. Every day we would take shifts sleeping, and hunt, gather, raid other groups for their dragon eggs, or fend off attacks from other groups. The year soon passed, and we had collected fourteen eggs. We only needed three, but we figured that we wouldn’t be penalized for over-achieving. We were evaluated, and then, because of our skill, we advanced into the next year.

The third year, the fighters had shrunk from ten thousand to just over two thousand. This year was unlike the other two; this year, we were given armor. The armor was remarkable, to say the least. We called it alicorn skin. First, the armor had retractable wings in the breast plate; on the helmet there was something that resembled a unicorn's horn and it allowed us to use magic. The armor was also enchanted to protect the wearer from most harmful spells, and it was light weight and easy to move in. My favorite feature of the armor, however, was an enchantment that converted heat energy into mechanical energy and protection magic. This meant that if you ran, the armor would use your body heat to allow you to run faster. If you were flying, the friction caused by the air around you would allow you to fly faster, and the protection magic feature meant that if you moved fast enough, the armor became almost indestructible. Each suit of armor also came with an enhanced version of the complementary weapons of the user.

Now, this armor was incredible, easily a true feat of unicorn magical engineering, but it was very difficult to control. Because of that, the third year was to be spent learning how to control the armor and to learn how to use it efficiently in combat. As the year went, we slowly grasped the concept of all our armor and abilities. Soon the end of the third year came and each group was brought in individually for evaluation. We waited and talked it over. What we knew is we would be given our armor and we would do something to show that we had learned to master it. We were calm and confident, since we had learned how to use our armor faster than the other groups, and every other challenge before whatever was next had been relatively easy to overcome. Finally, our time came and our group was called in for evaluation. We were led into a small arena; in the center was a stone table bearing the fourteen dragon eggs we had claimed a year before. There were also a small set of viewing stands at one end of the arena and it was covered with a magical protection barrier. Inside the stands were the two princesses Celestia and Luna; in addition, Shining Armor was present and several other shadowy figures of ponies that I assumed were high ranking officials of Equestria’s military and leadership council. I was able to make out Spitfire in one of the seats, however, she was just a commander of the Equestrian air corps, and I assumed the figure next to her was her commanding officer. All the ponies watched our group with judging eyes. Shining Armor stepped forward to address us.

“Congratulations bronies for making it this far,” he said, “The Equestrian Secretary of Magic will now address you.”

One of the shadowy ponies stepped forward into the light and Brian’s jaw dropped. The Equestrian Secretary of Magic was Twilight Sparkle.

“Good day bronies,” she said politely. “Before your final exam, I would like to ask you a few questions.”

None of us said anything. We just stood there.

“First: do you call the members of your group your friends?” she said.

“Yes!” we shouted up to her.

“Are all of you willing to sacrifice yourselves for Equestria?” she said.

“Yes!”

“Now if your group leader would step forward.”

Jack stepped forward.

“You are the one they call Jack, right?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” Jack replied

“Why did your team gather fourteen dragon eggs instead of the required three?” she asked curiously.

“Because thirteen is an unlucky number,” he replied, looking smug.

“Interesting. We will see if luck is on your side then.”

She finished and then trotted back into the dark corner she had been previously sitting. Shining Armor stepped forward again.

“This test will be done without the protective magic you have been used to having to keep you from being killed. This is not a drill,” he said, almost smirking.

Two years ago I would have been worried at this change of events, but today I was confident in my teammate’s abilities, and I was sure that our bond of friendship had somehow made us all stronger. Did our armor strengthen us from the magic of friendship? We didn’t know, but we knew that our friendship made us stronger.

“I'd like to introduce you to the Minister of Wild Life,” Shining armor said.

Another figure appeared; it was Fluttershy. Jon’s jaw dropped this time.

“Will the guards please open the cages, if you don’t mind” she said in her usual shy voice.

The guards standing by a nearby wall pulled a lever, and a giant metal door swung open. My heart sank; we all watched with dumbfounded looks as fourteen furious dragons stomped out into the arena, restrained with giant metal chains.

“Those eggs you captured were the eggs of these fourteen angry mother dragons. Your task is to slay the dragons and protect the eggs… or die trying.” Shining Armor said coldly.

A horn sounded, and the chains restraining the dragons disintegrated magically; all fourteen of the beasts charged.

“Oh my bucking Celestia” Hunter muttered. Since arriving in Equestria, all of us had become adept at using pony curses.

I tried to encourage the others.

“Don’t worry, our armor reacts to heat, so any fire will only make us stronger, this should be a piece of cake.”

As I finished, one of the dragons shot a blast in our direction. It missed us overhead by a foot, slammed into the magical barrier protecting the stands and then exploded raining thousands of ice shards on us. These were frost dragons: although our armor was great, it did have a few flaws; one was that it practically shut down when it got cold. The battle had barely started, and it already seemed to be going badly.

“Don’t worry bronies!” Jack cheerfully exclaimed, “We’ve encountered worse before, and beating these dumb animals should be like a walk in the park!”

We all stood back to back, weapons drawn. The dragons surrounded us, and it was almost two to one.

“Any last words?” Spencer asked grimly.

“I got nothing.” Gabriel replied.

“He was talking to the dragons, Gabe,” Hunter said.

“Don’t make me a liar, Hunter,” Spencer remarked.

The dragons released a flurry of ice on all of us at once. Luke and I were best at magic and we were able to put up a protective barrier around our group just in time to avoid being frozen. The second the wave of ice stopped we made our move. I and Jack drew our bows and charged our arrows. We shot our arrows, and with magic guided them to their targets--not that we needed to, but just to be sure. Both arrows struck a different dragon in the eye; on contact the great beasts calcified, became stone, and crumbled to rubble.

Jon advanced and gracefully sailed in between two dragons. With a wind spell on his swords, he sliced off the heads of two of the beasts laterally, creating two mirrored images of gore for each dragon. One dragon attempted another frost attack on Spencer, but Spencer raised his shield to block it. He then pushed his shield arm forward and bashed the dragon in the head, so hard that some of the large scales on its muzzle split and the beast reeled back in pain. Spencer, without hesitation, threw his shield at the dragon, decapitating it. Another dragon came up from behind Spencer, but to no avail; Spencer charged his spear and threw it at the dragon’s heart with such force that the poor creature’s chest exploded from the impact.

Brian had gotten good at conjuring his throwing knives in training, and when a dragon appeared in front of him, he threw several magic blades in its chest; he clenched his fist and the magical blades exploded, causing gore to rain down on us all. Matthew, we found, was talented at acrobatics, and he jumped onto one of the remaining dragons' heads. He proceeded to run up the beast’s neck before decapitating it, and then jumped off and with a flip took down another dragon by ramming the blade of his weapon down the throat of the unlucky creature.

Gabriel used his battle axes and threw them end over end, decapitating a dragon and then boomeranging the weapons back his direction, and catching them. Luke used his sword staff, and with a wind spell, butchered a dragon into tiny chunks in the blink of an eye.

Hunter ran at one of the dragons and smashed its skull into the ground with his war hammer, then used the momentum generated from his attack to fling himself into the air and, with his knee, crushed another dragon's neck. The beast survived this attack however and flailed in pain. Hunter seemed more annoyed than startled at this and with a single punch to the head, he broke through the dragons skull and sprayed himself with blood, ending the dragons life.

The last dragon I handled. With the wings in the armor, I flew to the roof of the arena and dove at the dragon, my sword outstretched in my arm. With blinding speed, taking advantage of the near indestructibility of my armor, I slammed into the dragon, causing it to explode in a shower of blood and gore.

The whole fight had only lasted about thirty seconds, and we were victorious.

Shining Armor looked pleased. “It looks like we’ve found our "A team",” he said.

Light started to slowly illuminate the stands. Now all of us stared, jaw dropped.
Gradually we saw pony after pony; Apple Jack was a five star general for the Earth Pony Army. “Some mighty fine soldiers we have ourselves here,” she said, looking impressed.

Rarity was the next I saw. She was wearing a lab coat that bore the seal of the leader of the Equestrian Munitions development Laboratory. “You boys sure know how to make my armor look both fabulous and dangerous all at once” she said in a gleeful tone.

“They’re alright, but let’s see how they do against a regiment of my air ships!” one pony exclaimed.

We all looked towards the direction of the voice; it was Pinkie Pie. She was also wearing a lab coat, but this one bore the seal of the leader of the Equestrian Engineering Corps.

I noticed that Spitfire rose and saluted. The figure next to her stood, and the slights slowly illuminated the shadowy pony.

“Not bad wing work,” the figure directed to me, “but we’ll see how you fare against Cloudsdale’s finest.”

The figure stepped into the light; it was Rainbow Dash. I almost abandoned military professionalism and broke into brony excitement. Rainbow Dash was the leader of the Equestrian Air Corps; A five star general, even outranking the Wonder Bolt’s leader, Spitfire. The thought amazed me.

Shining Armor spoke again. “Well, bronies, congratulations. You have passed your evaluations; as tribute to this momentous occasion, I will bestow upon your group a name. The name by which you group will be known is the Dragon Knights. Now please, each of you, with your magic, awaken one of the dragon eggs on the stone table. These dragons will be your companions throughout your journeys, when the time is right.”

We each approached an egg, and woke it. The strange thing about a dragon is the first being a baby dragon sees, it creates a bond to that being, and will never willingly leave its side.

“That is all,” Shining Armor said. “You are dismissed.”

_________________

We left the caves. It had been the first time any of us had seen the surface in three years, even though to everypony else it had been three days. We were immediately called into a briefing room, inside of which stood Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack.

“Alright fellas, come on in,” Apple Jack said.

We all shuffled in and took seats at a table that was too small for us humans. A slide projector turned on and we saw on a blank wall a picture of what looked like a series of storm clouds.

“These pictures were taken just outside of Manehatten two days ago,” Rainbow Dash started. “This is a cloud carrier. Its whole purpose is to buck bits up.”

Apple Jack spoke up. “What she means is, the enemy has been using these things to stage aerial assaults and magic bombing raids on our cities.”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash cut in. “These things have made it totally hard for my Pegasus ponies to provide air support for our ground troops, and that is really uncool.”

“Eh, right…” Apple Jack said in a half-confused, half-dumbfounded tone. “These things are heavily fortified, and we aren’t able to get close to them without suffering major casualties”.

The details of the mission weren’t all that important, but the point was, we were to fly in above the cloud barrier around Manehatten (provided by Cloudsdale), and maintain high altitude in order to drop onto the top of the cloud carrier. We were then to make it to the bridge of the cloud carrier and sabotage its weapon systems. With the cloud carrier "dead in the water," a regiment of second year bronies, or "pegasus-class" bronies, was to come and secure the ship so that its magical and technological secrets could be assessed by engineering teams.

“You deploy at oh-600 hours tomorrow,” Rainbow Dash said. “So make sure you get a good night’s sleep, and prepare yourselves for the real war.”

With that, both Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash left the room. Jack was the first of us to stand.

“Get some shut-eye boys, we have a big day tomorrow,” he said.

He left the room. One by one, we all left. I was the last to leave. This was it, this is what we came here for.

__________________

I couldn’t sleep that night for two reasons. I had been used to sleeping for thirty minutes every three or four hours for the past two years; you felt rested and you only slept for two to three hours a day. The other reason--and probably the biggest--was that I remembered the amazing fact that I was even in this world. For the past three years, I hadn’t spent much time around ponies. Most of the time I spent here was still around other humans; but today, I had seen all of the "mane six," and just the reality of it wouldn’t leave me alone; especially the reality of Rainbow Dash. Back on Earth, Rainbow Dash was my favorite pony; her bombastic attitude, her rainbow mane, the fact that she was a "tom-boy." It modeled everything I looked for in a girl. But here, she was real and I could actually talk to her if I wanted. I knew that I was a human and she a pony, but she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. But I knew it would never work between us because, like I said, she was a pony and I was a human, so I pushed the thought aside and tried to sleep.

Chapter 2: The Unveiling of the Dragon Knights.

The next morning, we were up and ready to go by 0530. I hadn’t slept that night, but I wasn’t tired. Shining Armor met us at the airship transport depot.

“Good morning, bronies,” he said cheerfully.

“Umm… Hello, sir,” I said.

"As I’m sure you’re wondering, how are you going to be transported from here to the battlefield? We could send you by train, but Manehatten is a two day ride. You could fly in airships or just use the wings in your armor, but there are plenty of Griffin scouts out in the everfree forest, and we want to maintain the element of surprise.”

None of us saw where this was going. We waited patiently for Shining Armor to continue.

“That is why we are going to be taking advantage of a natural phenomenon here in Equestria.”

Shining Armor walked over to a railing that overlooked the Equestrian landscape. Suddenly, nine enormous dragons flew up past the railing, sending a nearly gale-force wind our way.

“The Great Dragon Migration” he said over the wind in our ears.

All of us in our group gaped at the spectacular appearance of the dragons.

“Remember the eggs you hatched?” Shining Armor said. He appeared almost smug.

Could these really be those dragon eggs we hatched yesterday? I thought to myself. Shining Armor answered my question.

“We took those dragons you hatched and put them in yes, yet another time-stream spell. Although in this world they are only hours old, in the time stream field, they are centuries old; two hundred and sixty-two years, to be exact.”

One of the dragons flew to me. The smallest of the nine, it had black scales, and short green spikes protruded from its head all the way to its tail. Its neck was short for a dragon, but its tail was long and tipped with a large scale that looked like a sword. Its forearms also had large scales, like shields. It spoke to me. “Hello again, Father.”

“Hello,” I said back, still a little stunned.

“It has been long, but I have waited for this day when we would meet again, and then I would finally receive a name.”

That was right; we hadn’t given our dragons names when they had been born.

“Is that so?” I said, “In that case, the name by which you shall be known throughout this world shall be Mercury.”

The dragon looked pleased and took off; he soared joyously through the air, then stopped midflight and roared a pillar of fire towards the sky.

A few hours passed before we actually left. This was so that our dragons could be fitted with saddles in which we could comfortably sit--not saying that spikes are uncomfortable, but we thought that saddles would allow a smoother ride. We were also waiting for the migrating dragons to show up, and when they finally did, we took off. It was easy to spot each other because our dragons eerily resembled who we were, especially the weapons we carried.

When we reached Manehatten, we dismounted; in mid-flight we dove from our dragons and took flight with the wings in our armor. We made our climb and eventually approached the correct altitude for our mission specifications. The cloud carrier was below us, and we dove.

We touched down on the carrier undetected, and used our magic to punch a hole through the cloud hull with a condensation spell. We ducked through the newly-made hole and into a hallway. Jack was our scout since he was the stealthiest. He put on an invisibility spell and checked each corner. We followed, our footsteps treading lightly on the fluffy floor.

Luke was our navigator, and used his magic to locate the bridge, since it would be the central hub for magic transfer in the carrier. Around one corner, Jack stopped us. There were two griffin guards patrolling the next hallway. We watched the two fiends as Jack went to work. At first, it looked like nothing was going on, then all of a sudden the necks of both the griffins opened up like mouths, spitting blood all throughout the hallway, staining the cloudy floor and walls red.

“Nice one, Jack,” Brian said.

We continued and walked in through the next doorway. All of us grinned at what we saw--a barrack full of sleeping griffins. We all got to work, snapping necks, slitting throats, anything that would kill them quietly. By the time we were done, the room was covered with blood and feathers, and so were we.

Eventually we made it to the bridge. We put Brian on "breach duty," and in three seconds, every griffin had a throwing knife between its eyes. Luke then went to work on the magic control console.

“Son of a bit!” he shouted.

“What’s wrong?” Matthew said.

Luke replied, “What’s wrong is the console is protected by a Phoenix-level magical fire wall!”

“So...”

“So, in order to shut down the weapons system, I’m gonna need to manually access the main control terminal through a back door.”

“How long will that take?” I said.

“About three hours at the earliest,” Luke replied, frustrated.

“Buck it, not enough time,” Matthew muttered.

Matthew drew his scythe and swung it into the terminal monitor.

“What the bucking Celestia are you doing?!” Luke exclaimed.

An alarm sounded and a voice boomed through the room.

“Warning: magic failure in blocs C and D, primary defensive systems offline.”

Luke looked over at Matthew, dumbfounded.

“I guess... objective complete, good job, Matthew,” he said.

A few seconds passed, and then the carrier shook; the boarding had commenced. Suddenly, alarms started to sound, and griffin troops started running into the bridge. Spencer grabbed the nearest griffin and threw him into the others, causing about four of them to hit the cloud wall in the hallway. It seemed a surprisingly hard collision, considering the substance they had been hurled into.

I had prepared my bow while this happened and shot a magic arrow at the pile. The projectile exploded on impact, killing all four griffins and two others that had been unlucky enough to be nearby.

We proceeded down the hallway; two griffins turned the corner only to see the sharp side of Gabriel’s axes.

“This way,” Luke said.

We continued down the hallway and to a set of cloud stairs. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves outside on the carrier deck. A battle was raging; even though the main magic-cannons were offline, griffins were still manning a type of magical anti-aircraft gun against our airships.

“Take out those guns!” Jack barked.

“I’m on it!” Hunter replied.

Hunter ran to the nearest gun and pulled a griffin out of the gunner seat. With his bare hands, he ripped off one of the griffin's wings and tossed the creature off the edge of the carrier. He pulled the gun by the barrel out of the cloud deck and threw it at a second gun--the resulting collision of the two guns caused an explosion of rainbow fire and showered the deck with twinkling, magic sparks.

“Good work,” Jack said.

“Oh my bucking Celestia,” Luke groaned.

We thought he was talking to Matthew, but we saw he was looking in another direction. We turned to see he was looking at a fleet of airships--enemy airships.

“How in the hoof are we gonna deal with that!?” Spencer cried.

I thought for a moment, and I saw there were two anti-aircraft guns remaining.

“Hunter, Spencer!” I yelled “You two commandeer the AA guns. Everyone else follow my lead!”

I ran to the edge of the carrier and jumped; everyone else followed, just before a friendly airship collided with the carrier deck and exploded the area which we had just vacated.

“Do as I do!” I shouted to the others over the din of the exploding airship.

I wasn’t sure this would work, but it was worth a shot.

“Mercury!” I yelled.

Within milliseconds, my dragon appeared and caught me in my free fall. The others saw this and called their dragons as well.

“Dreki!”

“Spyro!”

“Zeus!”

“Talon!”

“Inb4spyro!”

“Odowinn!”

The other dragons followed Mercury's example, and came and caught their riders.

“I see what you did there,” Jon said, smirking.

We flew toward the enemy airships.

“Everyone, use your long-range weapons if you have them!” I said.

I turned toward Mercury now. “And you Mercury, let’s see what you've got.”

“Delighted,” Mercury said, letting out what seemed like a smirk.

The dragons broke formation, and we assaulted the airship fleet. Jon and Dreki flew in a whirlwind formation, spinning and slicing airships with the razor edges of Dreki’s wings. Jack and Zeus took out airship balloons with a combination of Zeus’s lightning breath and Jack’s electric arrows. Matthew and Talon flew low, and with acrobatic skill sliced airships with the large, scythe-like scales on Talon’s tail. Luke and Spyro used a combination of Luke’s fire-magic pillars and Spyro’s dragon breath; the attack seemed to ignite the clouds themselves and burn the airships with them. Brian and Odowinn set out as well, Brian flinging throwing knives and magically guiding them into the bridge of each airship, where they exploded; Odowinn shot bolts of fire from his mouth that exploded on contact. Inb4spyro, being one of the biggest dragons, simply grabbed the airships with his back talons and flung them at other airships, or used a combination of the sharp axe-like scales on his beak and tail to hack the ships apart with big, swooping swings. Mercury and I mimicked the attack I used during the team evaluation; with such blinding speed that we broke the sound barrier, we simply pierced through airships unharmed because we were not only moving so fast, but because of my armor's near-indestructibility and the fact that Mercury’s beak was sharper than any blade I had ever seen.

This assault on the enemy airships lasted about thirty minutes, before the airships sounded a retreat. Hunter and Spencer had regrouped with us; Hunter with his dragon, Vulcan, and Spencer with his, called Drake. The two dragons were the biggest: Drake was thirty times the size of Mercury, and Vulcan being about forty times as big as the same.

Together the two dragons finished off the retreating ships. Drake shot a sound wave from his mouth so powerful, it caused the nearest ships to shake apart. It was Vulcan’s turn now; the great dragon’s attack was by far the most impressive. As the airships got far enough away, the behemoth shot a ball of what appeared to be magma from his mouth and it traveled fast, colliding with an airship. Upon contact, the ball caused an explosion that easily encompassed seven hundred and fifty meters, annihilating the rest of the airships in the blink of an eye.

Just like that, the battle was over. We regrouped on the captured carrier and helped the "pegasus-class" bronies mop up the straggling resistance. Once the carrier was secure, an airship docked on the it's damaged deck. This airship was smaller than normal airships, but I did observe that it was equipped with magical defenses and weaponry more sophisticated and more powerful than any "normal" airship I had seen. The ship's hatch opened, and out walked a team of pony engineers led by Pinkie Pie.

“Ooooo!” she squealed, gaping at the captured cloud carrier. “I can’t wait to go through the ship and see what new stuff we can learn about griffin engineering!”

She bounded off in her normal Pinkie Pie fashion and the other engineers followed--almost exasperated-looking--after her. Shining Armor stepped out of the airship last.

“Good work, bronies,” he said.

“It was easy,” Matthew said, “like squashing ants.”

“Very well” Shining Armor replied. “Well thanks to you, our forces have been able to get their air support”.

I looked to the east and saw airships dropping magical bombs in the distance, emphasizing Shining Armor’s point.

“With that, I estimate that we will be able to push back the enemy forces and take back what’s left of Manehatten.” Shining Armor said this with the slightest tone of sadness in his voice; it was probably because he felt he was responsible for not being able to prevent the city from being ravaged by griffin attacks.

Our job had been done, and we were returned to Canterlot by train. We arrived, two uneventful days later, to a parade celebrating our victory. The streets were lined with unicorn civilians, confetti filled the air, and fireworks lit up the sky. Later that night, a ball was held at the castle for our success; it was here that we learned that the fighting in Manehatten had ceased and the griffin forces were pushed back the day after we captured the cloud carrier. At the ball, ponies lined up to meet the "Heroes of Manehatten," as we were being called. Midway through the party, we dressed in military uniforms--Rarity had made the especially for the occasion--and an award ceremony was held for the Dragon Knights. We were awarded the Equestrian Shield of Valor for our bravery.

After the ceremony, there was a banquet. Our team was disappointed to find that the spread was completely vegetarian. We had hoped there would have been some kind of meat, but then we realized that any meat we could have asked for would have been considered cannibalism to the other ponies. Instead we helped ourselves to some apple cider and cake. Sometime through the feast, we were greeted by Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash.

“Eat up fellas. You deserve it,” Apple Jack said.

“And don’t get used to it either--there’s still a war going on in the countryside and ponies are dying,” Rainbow Dash said in a displeased tone. She was scowling, and my heart went out to her.

She flew off with her hooves crossed, leaving Apple Jack to deal with us.

"Don’t mind her,” Apple Jack said, grimacing sympathetically. “She’s probably just upset because you were able to do what she wasn’t able to. She'll come around.”

“Or it’s her time of the month” Spencer whispered.

All of us couldn’t help but to laugh at Spencer’s comment.

“Pardon?” Apple Jack said with her always-adorable look of confusion on her face.

“Nothing,” Jon said. “We’re all just a little tired from today, with all the parades and stuff.”

“Well… alright then” Apple Jack said. She left, probably to go find Rainbow Dash.

We all soon left after that and returned to our rooms in the guard barracks. That night I wasn’t able to sleep again because I had been thinking about Rainbow Dash; she seemed so upset at the party. I could only imagine that it was because we had only completed one mission and had a whole celebration in our honor because of it. I could not help but think of Rainbow Dash somewhere crying; and all I wanted was to be there with her, to comfort her, to love her.

The capture of the cloud carrier was only the first of many victories for the Dragon Knights. From taking out armored columns to eliminating high priority targets, the legend of the Dragon Knights spread to the four corners of Equestria. Jack’s stealth struck fear in every enemy griffin; stories spread that on any given night, you might have your throat cut in your sleep by the "shadow brony." Jon was known as the Tornado of Death, mostly for his wind attacks. Gabriel’s boomerang-axes were feared by every changeling. Matthew became known as the Circus Reaper, for reasons better left unwritten. Spencer’s shield became the crest of hope to rebel pony fighters behind enemy lines. Hunter was called the Minotaur and legends spread that his hammer was able to split mountains with a single strike. Brian inspired a generation of young stallions who practiced with throwing knives. Luke’s magic earned him a wing near Twilight Sparkle's in the Canterlot archives. I and stories of my flying surpassed the fame of the Sonic Mare Rainbow Dash, and my signature finishing blow was given the name"The Angel’s Strike." The Dragon Knights became the beacon of hope in Equestria, and our victories fueled its fire.

One day after another successful mission, we were called in for an immediate briefing. We met in the briefing room and Shining Armor was there to meet us. Already seated in the room were Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash. My favorite pony had an angry look on her face.

“What’s going on, Shining Armor?” Jack said.

“I am pleased to announce that we may have just found the break we’ve been looking for in this war,” he replied. “Another group of "alicorn-class" bronies, team Cockatrice, to be exact.”

I had heard of team Cockatrice before; they ran clandestine operations that were too risky for normal spies. They received the name "Cockatrice" because the look in their eyes felt like it could turn you to stone. Aside from the Dragon Knights--it still was difficult to believe that that meant our little group--team Cockatrice was considered the best team of "alicorn-class" bronies in Equestria.

Shining Armor continued. “Team Cockatrice was running an operation on a griffin cloud carrier factory. During their mission, they intercepted an enemy message. We were able to decode it and we discovered that Crysalia is going to be overseeing the transport of several cloud carriers to a raid on Fillydelphia. If we can capture the Changeling Queen, we may be able to interrogate her, discover the location of Discord, and end this war.”

“Wait,” Jon said. “How many cloud carriers are we talking, here?”

“Twelve, to be exact” Shining Armor replied.

Luke entered the conversation. “How are we gonna take down twelve bucking cloud carriers?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” Shining Armor said. “Team Cockatrice’s mission was to target the carriers for our new secret weapon.”

“Weapon?” Hunter asked.

Shining Armor was grinning “I think you nine are familiar with an Orbital Friendship Cannon”.

Spencer smiled.

“Our plan is to have you nine find the Changeling Queen. We don’t know where she will be exactly, but we do believe that she will be hidden amongst several transport airships and ground vehicles. You will be working in conjunction with Team Cockatrice; Team Cockatrice will search the ground with Apple Jack and her earth pony army, and your team will take the skies with Rainbow Dash and the air corps.”

"There is no bucking way I am working with these guys!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

Her outburst stung because I knew it was mainly directed towards me, since I had taken her spot as Equestria’s best flyer. That cut me deep--she was my favorite pony, after all. I wanted her to like me more than anypony else.

“Me and my pegasi can handle the sky on our own!” She continued.

“Rainbow Dash!” Shining Armor barked, “This operation is probably the most important of the entire war, and I’m not taking any chances at letting an opportunity such as this pass us by.”

“Sir, you know that winning this war is the most important thing to me right now; but I will not let these two-legged, wingless wannabees share the sky!”

Rainbow Dash was taking cheap shots now. Petty, but they still hurt.

“Rainbow Dash!” Shining Armor yelled, “you will fight with these bronies, and that is an order!”

“Kiss my flank,” Rainbow Dash shot back.

“Rainbow Dash, you are addressing a senior officer!” Shining Armor yelled.

“Sorry… Kiss my flank, sir.”

Rainbow Dash saluted--as sarcastically as possible--and then flew out of the room, slamming the door as she left. Shining Armor sighed, and returned his attention to us.

“As for you nine, we deploy at oh-400 sharp!”

We saluted.

“Yes sir!” we yelled, and marched out of the room.

By 0800 the next day, we were positioned a top a layer of clouds, surveying the area for any sign of the enemy carriers. Since bronies had entered the war, we humans brought secrets of technology with us. Now the pony armies had things like artillery cannons, magic-powered tanks called Manticorns, real-time COM networks, as well as the technology for an Orbital Friendship Cannon; all of which we had brought for this strike. We also had several of our own cloud carriers that we were able to make based on the knowledge the engineering teams had gleaned from captured cloud carriers. We hid everything behind a thick layer of fog and above the clouds from where we were surveying.

The leader of Team Cockatrice sounded through the COM devices in our helmets.

“I see them,” he said grimly.

Sure enough, we looked down and saw the brigade of cloud carriers and a few hundred ground vehicles pulled by hydras.

“This is going to be one hoof of a fight,” I said.

The Cockatrice leader sounded through the COM networks again.

“The Orbital Friendship Cannon is ready to fire, all it needs is the confirmation clearance to shoot.”

“I got it,” Spencer said. He radioed in to Orbital Friendship Cannon Command. “OFC Command, we have hate detected, I repeat, we have hate detected!”

Spencer finished, and we got a reply.

“Roger that DK, targeting sequence initiated, we have a green light to fire, stand by.”

We all sat and watched as the brigade made its way in our direction.

“Firing anti-hate ordinance,” OFC Command reported after a moment.

All of a sudden, a blinding light flashed and the nearest cloud carrier behind us exploded in a rainbow flame of magic. The OFC had shot down one of our own carriers.

“What the buck!” Gabriel yelled.

Spencer radioed OFC command. “Stand down! I repeat, stand down! Target struck was friendly!” Spencer was trying to keep control of himself. Suddenly, the brigade of enemy vehicles engaged our army.

“Repeat that DK, did you say we hit one of our own ships?” OFC command replied. They sounded alarmed.

Apple Jack sounded over the COMs now, “DK, this is AJ, something is wrong; Team Cockatrice… are changelings!”
She sounded panicked.

“They’ve sabotaged our artillery, and we're pinned down by enemy fire!” Apple Jack finished.

Spencer turned white and looked to Jack. “I need to help her,” he said.

“No!” Jack replied. “We were set up, and we have clear orders to stay with the air corps!”

Spencer grabbed Jack’s arm and looked him in the eye; tears were forming in his eyes. “Please… do this for me,” he said.

We all felt what Spencer felt at that moment; our friendship was that strong. Spencer had always liked Apple Jack as I liked Rainbow Dash, and I could see he needed to go help her. Jack saw it too.

“Okay,” Jack said, “but you’re not going alone.” He directed Gabriel, Luke, and Brian to go with him and the four departed for the earth pony army.

“What do we do now, retreat?” Matthew said.

“No,” Jack said solemnly. “We have some cloud carriers to destroy.”

We were going to fly in and re-mark the enemy carriers for the OFC, find Crysalia, and finish the mission. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

Chapter 3: The Price of Victory

We dove from the clouds and called our dragons. The enemy ground forces saw us and started to focus their attacks on us.

“Eat this!” Hunter yelled. Without much prompting, Vulcan grunted and shot several exploding orbs at the forces, taking out a good portion of the enemy.

“That should teach them not to buck with us!” Matthew cheered.

We came upon the first cloud carrier and set about taking out its magical cannons. Vulcan took care of this by shooting an exploding orb at the magical weapons. The main cannons were destroyed, but slowly started to rebuild themselves.

One thing our engineers had learned about the cloud carriers was that the only way to destroy a carrier was to destroy its magical core; otherwise, the carrier would repair itself. Because of this, the only way we could successfully take down a carrier was to infiltrate the bridge and destroy the magical core using a magical disruptor spell, or destroy it with a powerful beam of magic like the OFC could provide.

For now, the carrier cannons were temporarily offline, and Jack jumped to the carrier. Moving fast to avoid the griffins beginning to swarm at him, he marked it with the magical circle that would act as a target for the OFC. We continued with this strategy; Hunter and Vulcan would destroy the cloud carrier cannons, while the rest of us marked the carriers. When we were finished, Jack contacted OFC Command.

“OFC Command, this is DK, we have re-marked the enemy carriers. I repeat, we have re-marked the enemy carriers and are requesting immediate hate annihilation.”

“Roger that, DK.” OFSC command replied. “There is a five-minute charge time between each shot, so prepare for a long fight.”

“Fight,” Matthew mocked, “We’ve already engaged with the bucking enemy, just shoot the bucking thing!”

“Roger that,” OFC command replied.

“Brilliant” Jack said.

The first bolt of magic struck one of the enemy carriers. The magical core exploded, and the carrier started to fall. It hit the ground and then exploded in rainbow fire in the midst of clashing air corps and enemy airships. The battle looked like it was evening out, and it was only a matter of time before we won. Now all that was left was finding Crysalia.

Jack radioed Gabriel. “Gabe, the enemy carriers are marked and we’re going to find Crysalia. You four search the ground for signs of her.”

“Jack,” Gabriel said. His voice sounded worried. “We were fighting trying to protect AJ--the changelings--”

“What about it, what’s wrong?” Jack said. Gabriel's panic had spread like a disease to Jack.

“It’s Spencer--he was carrying AJ to safety, and one of the Cockatrice Changelings stabbed him in the chest--he’s bleeding badly, and Luke isn’t able to do anything for him. I--I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

We immediately flew like the Devil was on our heels to where Gabriel, Luke, Brian, and Spencer were. Luke was working magic on Spencer. He stood and moved grimly to Jack.

“He’s been hit with a corrosive magic attack. I was able to stop it, but it--it reached his heart before I could. It’s--it's almost over.”

Luke trailed off, looking down, and Jack kneeled next to Spencer.

“Sup mate?” He spoke with a reverent tone, but his voice broke. “We’re gonna get you out of here--you’re going to be all right.”

“You’re a horrible liar--Jack,” Spencer gasped.

“I shouldn’t have let you go,” Jack replied. He blinked back tears.

Spencer sounded weaker with each breath. “Jack--we both know this is my last op. I wish I--could see it through. Jack, I’m glad to have been your friend.”

Jack couldn't fight the tears now. “Don’t say that, Spencer--we’ll get you out of here, get you to a hospital, and you’ll be fine.” He sniffed.

Spencer looked Jack in the eye, the same look he'd had when he asked to go save Apple Jack. Pleading.

“Jack. Save Apple Jack--find Crysalia, and... win. This. War.”

With that last statement, Spencer’s body went limp, and he stopped breathing. Drake, Spencer’s dragon, landed next to Spencer’s lifeless body. The dragon, weeping, raised it's head to the sky and roared it's grief, shaking the whole battlefield. Jack stepped away from Spencer’s body, and the great dragon encircled our friend, shaking with great sobs. The dragon wept gemstones, and we gasped as it slowly turned itself into a gem. The great had dragon crystalized itself into a giant diamond: protecting Spencer’s body in a beautiful glittering tomb right on the battlefield. If it hadn’t been for our team losing a member and me losing a friend, I just might have said that it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Tears started to well in my eyes, and I looked to see that the rest of us were also beginning to cry. A hole had been made in our hearts, and it would never be filled. We looked at each other, and wordlessly agreed to Spencer’s last request; we were going to save Apple Jack, we were going to find Crysalia, and we were going to win this war.

We set off after the changeling Team Cockatrice. Luke had used his magic to allow us to see the trail the changelings had left on the battlefield. We followed it in hot pursuit with the wings in our armor, travelling fast, for we were all out for blood. We were going to make those Changelings pay for what they had done to Spencer.

Not long after we had set out, we saw changelings. These changelings were different than others of their kind; they were human-like, bipedal, but they had wings and had a single horn on their foreheads. Upon closer inspection, I saw that they had Apple Jack--she was unconscious and a small stream of blood was trickling down her face. Suddenly, something rushed by my side and I shifted my attention from the changelings to the new object.

It was Rainbow Dash.

“What in the name of Celestia are you doing here?!” I shouted at her.

“Apple Jack is my friend, and I’m gonna save her!” she replied defiantly.

“Get out of here, it’s not safe,” I shot back.

“Kiss my flank!” she shouted.

“Please, I’m begging you, leave!” I pleaded.

She wouldn’t listen to me, and sped off. She flew faster and faster until finally she burst into a sonic rainboom and shot towards the humanoid changelings. The rest unfolded in slow motion to me. One of the changelings took out what appeared to be some sort of club and took a swing. The club connected with one of Rainbow Dash’s wings and there was a sickening snap. Rainbow Dash screamed as she fell to the ground and rolled, tumbling until she came to a stop. Two of the humanoid changelings separated from the group, grabbed Rainbow Dash by her colorful mane and tail, and dragged the injured pony with them in a different direction. My heart about stopped.

“Buck,” I cursed under my breath. Jack and I took off after Rainbow Dash; and Jack directed the rest of the team to continue after Apple Jack. We pursued the changelings until they flew into the hangar of one of the enemy cloud carriers.

“No!” I said aloud. That carrier was about to be destroyed, buck it, and Rainbow Dash was inside!

“OFC Command,” Jack said into the COM channel. There was no answer. He tried again. “Orbital Friendship Cannon Command, do you copy?” No answer.

“It must be all the excess magic radiation from the OFC,” I said. “It must be jamming our COM lines.”

“We need to wait to get a hold of OFC Command and call off the strike until we get RD.” he said.

“There’s no time!” I argued. I broke away from Jack and started to the carrier.

“Wait!” He yelled. “I’m coming with you!”

“No!” I said. “I’ll be quick, and then I’ll join up with you later, with Rainbow Dash.”

Jack laughed. “You must have forgotten,” he said, looking at me with a smile, “but Dashie is my favorite pony, too.”

I returned the smile. “Then let’s haul flank.”

We entered the carrier, and began following the trails of the two changelings. We ran down a hallway and turned a few corners. Eventually, we arrived in a big, dark, open room. Rainbow Dash was lying nearly unconscious in the center, spotlighted by a white light. We entered the room cautiously, and the door behind us sealed shut. Suddenly, a cackle reverberated around the room. Jack and I drew our weapons and stood back to back, looking warily around.

“Those little toys won’t do you any good,” an evil-sounding voice taunted, “After all, they didn’t do these soldiers any good, either.”

The lights turned on all at once, and the room was illuminated. Just behind Rainbow Dash were four humanoid changelings and Crysalia herself.

“What did you do with team Cockatrice!?” Jack demanded.

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” Crysalia said. “Let’s just say they’ve re-evaluated their loyalties.”

I realized she was referring to the humanoid changelings, and I remembered the cocoon that Celstia was encased in when Crysalia had almost taken over Equestria the first time.

“Are you saying that these changelings… were a part of Team Cockatrice?” I asked.

“Well, aren’t you a smart one,” Crysalia mocked.

She smiled and then looked me in the eyes; her slitted eyes seemed to pierce through my armor.

“I was wondering where that scent was coming from,” she purred. Her smile made me uncomfortable.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Crysalia walked toward Rainbow Dash. I could see that Rainbow Dash was weak, but conscious. Crysalia bent down and grabbed Rainbow Dash's broken wing in her mouth and yanked it back and forth. Rainbow Dash let out an earsplitting shriek of pain, and I cringed at the Changeling Queen’s cruelty.

“There it is,” Crysalia said smoothly. “I was wondering which one of you was giving off that heavenly aroma.”

She was looking directly at me again, with her piercing, too-knowing eyes. “You love her, don’t you,” she said. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.

I was about to protest, but I was cut off.

“Don’t lie,” Crysalia said, “I can smell it coming from you; so much of it at that.” She circled around Rainbow Dash, smiling cruelly at the injured pony's groans. “But it seems like she feels nothing for you,” she continued, and laughed maniacally. “How entertaining. Declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited. And why would she love you? You’re just a two legged, wingless wannabe.”

That comment was the straw that broke the pony's back--I jumped at Crysalia with my sword, but my attack was blocked by one of the humanoid changelings.

“Now now,” she started, “You two have been a thorn in Discord’s side for too long now, and he has ordered me to kill you.” She trotted up to me. “And even though you smell delicious, I would never think of defying Discord”. She smiled, baring her fangs.

One of the other changelings jumped forward; I jumped back just in time to dodge his attack and lined up with Jack. “Ready to do this?” I asked. Jack replied, “Let’s show these mother buckers who they’re dealing with.”

The changelings charged, and we deflected their attacks. We attacked and defended, but it seemed like no matter what we did, we couldn’t get the upper hand; we were evenly matched, or so it seemed. Suddenly, a rainbow-colored beam ripped through the room. The OFC had hit the ship. The beam had taken two of the changelings with it, and left a great void below. I looked down the hole, and saw that the main magic reactor had been glanced, but not destroyed. However, the core was exposed and was growing unstable. Without a doubt, it would explode soon.

Crysalia gaped at what had happened, and with a frustrated look, grabbed Rainbow Dash with her magic and left the room. I started to follow, but was blocked by one of the two remaining humanoid changelings. Jack and I engaged the two. The one I was fighting fought with a net and a trident--he flung the net at me, but I dodged. The changeling, however, was smart, and thrusted its trident. It cut my cheek, and a warm gush trickled down my face. I jumped back and glared at the changeling; it smirked and motioned me to attack. I obliged and charged forward, sword cocked and ready. He threw his net at me again, but this time I cut the net in half with my sword. He tried to stab me with the trident, but I bashed it aside with my shield and ran my sword through the changeling. He gaped in surprise; I removed my sword, and the changeling fell to the ground in a puddle of its own green blood, dead.

I looked for Jack; he was still engaged with the other changeling. Sometime while I was fighting; Jack had managed to cut off one of the changelings wings. The changeling Jack fought wielded a kusarigama. Jack would dodge the razor ball end of the weapon and attack, but would have his attack blocked by the sickle end. The changeling threw the razor ball again; Jack dodged, but the changeling pulled the ball back, and the chain connecting the ball and the sickle wrapped around Jack. The changeling charged, but Jack quickly deployed his wings and broke the chain in time to dodge the his attack. Jack missed the attack from the sickle end, but one of his wings was severed. Jack jumped back and collected himself. The changeling motioned to his broken kusarigama, and the weapon repaired itself then flew back into his hands. Jack looked at the changeling, and we both noticed that it's back was facing the void made by the OFC. Jack grinned, ran straight for the changeling and threw his daggers at it. The creature reacted and deflected the daggers--by this time, Jack had closed the distance between him and the changeling and kicked it in the chest, sending it down the hole. Jack caught his breath for a moment, then looked at me and smiled.

“That was fun,” he said.

Just then, I saw the ball-chain end of the kusarigama ascend and wrap up around Jack's leg. It tripped him and he fell down to the edge of the hole. I rushed forward and grabbed his arm, glancing down the hole to see the changeling dangling over the magical core of the carrier, which was now dangerously unstable. A bolt of magic shot from the core and struck the chain; the chain melted enough to fuse to both the changeling and to Jack's leg. Jack cringed from the pain. I took my sword and tried to cut the chain, but it wouldn’t break--the magic had somehow made it indestructible. I tried to lift Jack, but the combined weight of Jack and the creature was too heavy, and I wasn’t able to lift either of them.

“Go,” he said to me.

“No!” I replied. “I’m not losing another friend today!”

“There’s no time--you have to get Crysalia!” he argued.

“I’m not leaving you behind!” I defiantly replied.

I tried to lift Jack again, using my wings and magic this time, but to no avail.

“Indy,” Jack yelled.

I stared into his eyes.

“You’re in charge now. Save Dashie.”

With that, Jack used his magic and tossed me back. He and the changeling fell and disintegrated in the magic core. It took me a moment to realize what just happened, and I mourned for my fallen friend.

I saw Jack’s daggers and picked them up before continuing after Crysalia with new rage in my heart. I pursued Crysalia’s trail and made it to a hangar of the carrier without interference. She was boarding a small airship, and Rainbow Dash was still with her. Propelled by adrenaline and fury, I rocketed toward her. Crysalia only had a second to look toward me before I swung my sword and her horn fell to the airship hull with a clack. I caught Rainbow Dash before she could fall, and stood looking down furiously on the Queen of the Changelings. She looked pathetic without her horn, but the sight did not engender pity in my hardened heart. I restrained her in a magic field--about four of them, actually--and made it to the helm of the airship. I set Rainbow Dash on a seat and piloted the ship out of the hangar. Moments after we cleared the carrier, the it’s magical core exploded, and the airship shook from the detonation. We traveled some distance, and then I sounded the COM line.

“AC, this is DK 4, I have Crysalia and Rainbow Dash. We are in a small enemy airship, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage.”

“Indy, is that you?!” Luke said. “Luna! We saw you and Jack enter that cloud carrier, and when we saw the OFC shoot… man you guys are lucky!”

I remembered that Jack wasn’t with me. “Jack…” I said soberly, “Jack didn’t make it.”

The COMs were silent for a moment.

“Roger that.” Luke replied. He sounded grim.

“Did you save AJ?” I asked, wishing that I could alleviate his grief.

“Yes, and you have Crysalia. Mission accomplished.” Luke croaked.

But at what cost? I thought to myself.

Chapter 5: Fallen Heroes

We returned to Canterlot, and a celebration was held for us for capturing Crysalia. We only stayed for the now-ubiquitous award ceremony, where we were awarded the Sword of Might by the princesses for our bravery in the face of defeat. We wouldn't--couldn't?--stay for anything else. We split up that night; we all had our own way of coping with our loss. I went to the Canterlot hospital to visit Apple Jack, but she was asleep, so I left her a jar of snap apple jam, with a card that said, "Something to remind you of home."

I continued and I came to Rainbow Dash’s room, hoping that she too was asleep. I didn't want to talk about what had happened on the cloud carrier--I couldn't help but think that she would make fun of me now that she knew that I was in love with her. She was, thank Celestia. I left her a cask of Sweet Apple Acres Cider, and a card that read, "Only the best for the best flyer in the world. Get well soon." I did not sign it, and left to return to the barracks and sleep.

A few days later, a funeral was held for our fallen comrades. Shining Armor, Apple Jack, Rainbow Dash, Celestia and Luna were all present. It was a private, quiet funeral and the deaths of Jack and Spencer were kept secret from the public in order to keep morale high. Shining Armor lead the remaining team members in a twenty one, exploding arrow salute. We had two caskets--no bodies, but the symbol was clear. We each took our team seal--a dragon head with an Alicorn Skin armor helmet--and pinned one to each casket for each of us, so that there were seven seals total on each casket. We saluted as the caskets were lowered into the ground and were presented with our comrades weapons afterwards. Everyone--human and pony alike--was crying, some almost uncontrollably, by the time Luke fused the blades to the head stones of each fallen Dragon Knight. We soon left after that.

I made my way back to the barracks--it was the only place I could think to go now. It had begun to rain, and I wanted to do nothing but sleep. As I walked, I was suddenly stopped by a voice.

“I never got the chance to say sorry.”

I turned, only to find that the voice belonged to Rainbow Dash. Under normal circumstances, my heart may have stopped, but I was too sick and weary with grief to feel much. She stood there with a sad face, and her wing was bandaged. The sight of her reminded me of the bandage on my cheek.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

“Walk with me?” she said.

She looked up at me with sad, puppy-dog-like eyes. I couldn’t refuse.

We walked, and she started to talk.

“I wanted to start by saying… I’m sorry for being a jerk back at the briefing room,” she said. She wouldn't look at me, only at her hooves as we shambled along.

“It’s alright,” I started, but she cut me off.

“I’m not done yet,” she snapped. “I’m sorry for not listening to you when you told me to leave… and--” She started to cry. “I’m sorry that because of me… you lost a friend. If I had only listened, Jack--he’d still be alive.”

Carefully, I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her.

“It’s okay--” I was crying now, but then, when had I stopped? “We knew what we were getting into when we came here. When we saw you being carried off, we both chased after you. We went into the cloud carrier, knowing that it could be destroyed at any minute. We both chose to go because we would rather die than live without you.”

I pulled away from her rainbow mane, my face wet with tears. I looked at her and kissed her forehead. She looked up at me for a long moment, and I felt my lips twitch into a half-smile. Releasing her, I stood, and we resumed walking. We continued on and reached her chambers in the castle.

“Please… don’t leave me,” she said.

She looked at me again with those big, puppy-dog eyes. I walked inside the room with Rainbow Dash and sat down on the small bed as she nestled up to me, her head in my lap. I began to stroke her mane.

“Please… don’t ever leave me,” she whispered. I wasn't sure if she had meant for me to hear, or even if she was aware that she was saying it.

She fell asleep soon afterwards. I couldn’t sleep; I didn’t want this moment to end. It was a dream come true; I was there, with Rainbow Dash, able to comfort her, to love her.

Chapter 6: The Final Battle

A week later, what was left of the Dragon Knights were called into the briefing room. Shining Armor was there to greet us.

“Hello Bronies,” he said.

We all sat down. A few minutes later, the door opened, and in walked the "mane six." Rainbow Dash sat down by me, and smiled when she did. My heart almost stopped, but then Shining Armor spoke.

“We have finished interrogating Crysalia, and we know where Discord is.”

My heart about stopped. Again. Buck it.

“We have discovered that he resides in a city built on the moon. There he is able to live in chaos, and is far enough away so we don’t see his activities outside of the war”.

Gabriel broke in. “How is he on the bucking moon?!”

Brian also interrupted. “We don’t have the training to do anything on the moon, let alone fight Discord!”

Shining Armor continued. “Please bronies, let me finish. The city is protected by a magic barrier and filled with oxygen--however, that’s about as normal as the city is. We are going to give you special equipment, as well as add a few upgrades to your Armor. In addition, your dragons will be fitted with similar Armor.” He finished with a near-maniacal grin.

Gabriel spoke up again. “You still didn’t answer my question. How in the buck did he get on the moon, and how are we going to get there to stop Discord?”

Shining Armor answered, “If we’ve learned one thing, it’s that we don’t question how Discord does stuff; we just know that he can do it. Secondly, you are going to get to the moon using the Elements of Harmony. Your mission is to escort the "mane six," as you call them, to Discord and allow them to use the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord, since that’s all we know that can stop him. Theoretically, with Discord gone, the griffins and changelings will stop advancing, or their morale will be low enough so that we can mop them up with ease. We launch tomorrow at 1100 hours.”

My heart sank. Rainbow Dash still had a broken wing, and now we were being told to deploy in hostile territory, unpredictable and more than likely dangerous. It wasn’t fair.

Is war ever fair? I thought to myself.

We would receive new gear before we left, so we were given the rest of the day to prepare ourselves. Because of the outcome of our last mission, we took this round more seriously, and treated this time like it was going to be our last day alive. We planned on separating at first, then we would join up later and converse about our day and have some cider at Doughnut Joe’s, then we would figure it out from there.

I spent most of the day with Rainbow Dash. We talked about flying, music, and whatever else came to mind. Since her wing was broken, she wanted to have a foot race, but of course she won and rubbed it in my face. We had a picnic and then decided to prank someone. I used my knowledge of snares and we rigged a water balloon above a small coin purse. Eventually, a stallion came and picked up the purse; the water balloon fell, drenching the pony. Rainbow Dash and I fell backwards laughing. Afterwards we sat on the grass looking at the clouds, trying to make out shapes pegasi had made from them. I felt so happy, and I didn’t want this day to end.

Later I joined up with the other guys, where we discussed our day. When we were finished, we walked the night streets of Canterlot; we didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and tried to make that a reality. I looked up at the night sky and watched the stars. The stars twinkled and seemed to grow brighter and bigger. It took me a moment to realize that they actually were getting bigger.

“What’s up, Indy?” Brian said.

I looked at him with fear in my eyes; I was only able to say one word. “Run!”

The first explosion occurred and fire lit up the sky. We were being bombed. Sirens started to wail, and ponies were screaming and running for cover. Bomb after magical bomb landed, causing the ground to shake with each explosion. Fire raged throughout the city. I and the rest of my team ran as fast as we could; we were running to a bunker that was hidden under the barracks to escape the bombs. I had been the first to make it, and I opened the hatch and motioned my team in.

“Let’s go, move-it-move-it-move-it!” I barked.

Hunter was at the rear of the group. A bomb landed a few meters away from him and knocked him to the ground. I ran to him and lifted him up on my shoulder and helped him to the bunker. We made it to the bunker and shut the hatch. Not even if Princess Celestia herself commanded us would we come out until morning.

The next morning, when walked outside, the sky was purple. Shining Armor had deployed a protection magic field over the capital city of Equestria. We later learned that the bombing the night before had come from the moon. Somehow, someway, Discord knew that we were on to him and was accelerating his campaign against Canterlot. We hurried to the castle and were taken to a lab, where Rarity and Pinkie Pie met us.

“We have some new toys for you guys before our mission,” Pinkie said cheerfully.

She bounced to a table at which stood two humans and one pony. I had never personally met any of these three, but I knew who they were. The pony was Vinyl Scratch, and the two humans were The Living Tombstone, and Skrillex.

“What-up, dudes?!” Vinyl Scratch said.

“You three are working together?” I asked incredulously.

“That’s right,” Skrillex said, grinning. “I wouldn’t miss the chance to work with the best DJ in all of Equestria!”

“What could three Dubstep DJs be working on in a munitions development lab?” I asked.

The Living Tombstone spoke. “Bass grenades,” he replied simply. He tossed me a canister.

“Go ahead, test it,” Vinyl Scratch said with a grin.

I pulled the pin and tossed it down the firing range next to the table. The grenade exploded in a flash of light and wubs, and left a crater on the firing range floor.

“So… awesome,” Brian breathed after a moment.

“Let’s move on,” Rarity said, politely disinterested.

We took a bag of grenades and moved on. We were showed up to our armor; it looked just about the same, except for the fact that it looked polished and new.

“The armor is different in several ways,” Rarity said proudly.

“How?” Jon muttered..

“First off”, Rarity continued, “it can withstand cold temperatures; it can also create an environment suitable to sustain life on the surface of the moon. It also has a few modifications with magical conversion.”

“Soooooo it’s better, right?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes… it is better,” Rarity replied, “We also have similar sets for your dragons.”

“My turn!” Pinkie Pie cheered bouncing in place.

She pressed a button, and a wall lifted, revealing our weapons--at least they resembled our weapons. Every blade was significantly different from our original weapons. They looked bigger, sleeker, sharper, shinier, and--as Rainbow Dash would put it--20% cooler from the originals.

“These things are tight!” Jon said with enthusiasm.

“Pinkie, you did a fantastic job on these things; I love them,” Gabriel said. He swung his axes around, testing them.

“Awww, thanks Gabe,” Pinkie Pie blushed.

“Well,” Rarity snubbed, “looks aren’t everything.”

I found this statement rather ironic. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

“That’s not all I did to them, Rarity,” Pinkie Pie said.

The weapons did feel different. Jon was testing them on a dummy, and what I saw I couldn’t believe. He attacked the target and then jumped like wind to a spot behind it so fast; if I had blinked I would have missed it.

“I infused the weapons with the elements that make up your fighting style”, Pinkie said with a smile, “Jon is wind, Brian is wisdom, Gabriel is darkness, Hunter is power, Matthew is water, Luke is fire, and you--” Pinkie got close to my face, making me blink. “You’re light!”

“These things are incredible,” Luke said. He twirled his staff and it set ablaze with blue flame.

Pinkie Pie was bouncing with joy. “Oooo, I knew you’d just love them!” she said.

“Well, we’d better get moving,” Rarity said, lifting her chin. “There is still a nation to save, after all.”

We grouped outside, prepped and ready for the trip to the moon. Our dragons were there, fitted in their armor, and they matched us riders. Even the "mane six" wore armor. We had our supplies and we were all ready to go. Twilight Sparkle passed out the Elements of Harmony, and Rainbow Dash walked up to me.

“Look, if we don’t make it back, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

I put two fingers to her lips, hushing her.

“We’ll make it back, I promise.” I said.

She smiled, satisfied at my promise. I knelt down and embraced her, and she returned it. The lightning bolt stone on her necklace started to glow.

“It’s time,” I said.

“Right,” she replied.

We were engulfed in light. Then, in an instant, we were on the surface of the moon. Our Armor had worked perfectly--we were able to breathe.

“The city is approximately ten klicks this direction,” Luke said, pointing in the direction of a small mountain range.

“No problem,” Inb4spyro growled. The dragon jumped and tried to fly, but fell back to the ground with a crash.

“No air here,” I said. “Wings won’t do much good; we’re gonna have to hoof it.”

“Then get on our backs,” Dreki hissed.

“Yes, we can still walk faster than all of you, and we didn’t come here for nothing,” Mercury said.

We boarded our dragons, and they ran. Each beast took advantage of the weak gravity and jumped across craters and hills. When we reached the mountains, they climbed the slopes with relative ease. Atop the mountain, we could see the city. It was encased in a field of green magic; and we weren’t sure how we were going to pierce the barrier and enter. We approached the barrier, and Luke pulled out a strange device that he had gotten from Derpy Hooves back at the castle labs. He placed the device on the magical barrier and inserted several bass grenades in the device. Next, he activated the device and the grenades exploded, opening a hole in the magical field. Our team marched through first, the "mane six" entered second, and our dragons help up the rear.

So far so good, I thought to myself.

“So what’s the plan?” Twilight said.

“We’re the plan,” Vulcan boomed.

“Yes,” I started. “Our dragons will fly around and bombard the city. The rest of us will fly to the castle at the center of the city, described by Crysalia as Discord’s fortress.”

Everyone took off at the same time. The dragons flew high and started shooting bolts of fire at the city haphazardly; my team and I each grabbed a pony and flew. I had Rainbow Dash, Jon had Fluttershy, Brian had Twilight, Matthew had Apple Jack, Gabriel had Pinkie Pie, Hunter had Rarity, and Luke navigated. We flew low and fast. Sirens started to wail as we approached the castle, and we saw griffin warriors taking to the sky. Luckily, none of the griffins saw us, and we all put on invisibility spells to hide from them. We reached the castle and flew through a window on the third story of the castle--or at least, I thought it was the third story. The outside of the castle was twisted and bent in directions that normal building wouldn’t be able to bend without suffering major structural problems, but this wasn’t a normal building--it was Discord's fortress, and reflected his twisted personality. From here, we couldn’t fly, and were forced to walk.

We arranged ourselves: Me, Hunter, Brian, and Luke at the front the "mane six" in the middle, and Gabriel, Jon, and Matthew at the back. We traveled like this throughout the twisting hallways of the castle, killing griffins as they appeared, and avoiding potential traps and hazards. At one point, we realized we were going around in circles.

“No, I swear I’ve seen this hall before,” Gabriel said.

“I feel the same Gabriel,” Jon replied.

Luke tried to find out any clues as to where to go.

“This place doesn’t make sense. Discord should be at the middle, but according to me, we are at the center. Where is Discord?” He said, puzzled.

Suddenly a voice boomed in the hallway. “Well, I’m right here,” it mocked. “If you needed me, why didn’t you just say so? Please, do come in.”

“Discord,” Twilight snarled.

“Hello again, Twilight Sparkle,” the voice said, “My, how my little skirmish with Celestia has changed you.”

“I don’t want to go any further,” Fluttershy whispered, and shuddered.

Jon kneeled to her level and tried to calm her with his softest voice. “Don’t worry, I’m here, and nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

Fluttershy smiled faintly at this, but the voice spoke up again.

“Yes, Fluttershy, nothing bad is going to happen to you… yet.”

Fluttershy let out a quiet shriek, and buried her head in her hooves.

“Hurry up, all of you,” the voice began again. “I know I have eons to wait, but I’ve just been so excited for this moment for quite some time.”

The hall started to bend and twist. My team and I formed a circle around the "mane six," to protect them from anything we couldn’t see. The twisting, and warping hall spiraled itself into a blurred mass of color. Suddenly, I started to make out shapes; the room was untwisting itself. When everything stopped, we found ourselves in a great and spacious room. Placed several meters to my right was a twisted throne, and seated in it, Discord.

“Ah, the great and terrible "Dragon Knights",” he mocked, “Well, I guess they will have to call you just the "knights" soon.”

He snapped his lion paw, and a large puff of smoke rushed around us. The smoke cleared and I saw our dragons. The sight was horrifying; each dragon had been stripped of its armor and was suspended from the ceiling of the room with chains that ended in sharp hooks that pieced the end of each of the dragons’ wings. Fluttershy let out a sad gasp.

“Those poor creatures,” she said.

The rest of the Dragon Knights and I all gaped at the scene. I searched the room for my dragon, and I found him. Mercury looked at me weakly, but with a brave look in his eyes, and seemed to know what would happen next. Tears started to form in my eyes at the sight.

Mercury peered at me and he spoke to me in a strong voice. “Remember the fallen,” he said.

Discord snapped his paw one more time and the dragons exploded in clouds of red mist. “See! Now wasn’t that exciting?” Discord laughed.

We were all speechless; our dragons, our companions throughout our journeys, were destroyed with a single snap of the fingers.

“See what I did there? You don’t get to see a show like that every day.”

Discord was rolling with laughter. Hunter was the first of us to tire of Discord’s irreverence and charged, his hammer glowing red with power. Discord calmly grabbed the hammer when Hunter swung, stopping the attack. Hunter looked surprised as Discord showed a toothy smile and then grabbed Hunter's face in his bird-talon hand. Suddenly, all the color drained from Hunter, and he was grey. He turned around, anger showing on his face.

“Careful”, Discord cackled, “I wouldn’t mess with this guy if I were you; he seems rather upset!”

Hunter jumped toward us. We reacted instantly, grabbing each a member of the "mane six" and dodging Hunter's attack. We were just fast enough to avoid the hammer, and Hunter struck the floor, causing an explosion of dust and rubble to fly in the air around him.

“His memories!” Twilight yelled.

She broke away from Brian before he could stop her and galloped toward Hunter. Hunter saw her, and swung his hammer. Twilight stopped and watched as the hammer came down. I flinched when I heard the wet crunch. At the last minute, Brian had pushed Twilight out of the way, but fell victim to Hunter’s attack instead. The force of the hammer was so great that it broke through Brian's helmet, and crushed his skull. Brian’s body crumpled, and he lay in a pool of blood, lifeless.

I was frozen by what I had just seen, and Hunter turned and slowly walked my direction. He raised his hammer, and I was still frozen; however, Hunters face turned from anger to surprise. I looked, and saw that there were two swords extending out of his chest. He fell to the floor, and Jon was behind him.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispered, and sheathed his swords.

Hunter lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood, motionless. Suddenly, we heard the sound of clapping.

“Bravo, quite a performance, if I do say so myself,” Discord said. He cackled again.

What was left of my team and I looked at him, scowling, with tears in our eyes.

“Ah, friendship,” Discord started. “It’s so pathetic and sickening, it almost makes me want to gag!”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I unsheathed my sword, and flew at him as fast as I could. I came to a screeching halt about an inch from his face, however; I had been trapped by Discord’s magic and held in place for him to do... essentially whatever he wished with me. It was extremely unsettling, and more than a little frightening. He turned me in the air, studying my features.

“You must be the new team leader,” he said, “I heard about that after the death of the other one. Jack, was it? Whatever. I heard that he had been replaced by the Dragon Knight that likes to fly.” He chuckled maniacally. “I’ve planned what I was going to do to you, especially after what I heard you did to Crysalia.” He turned me so my back was facing toward him, and Discord drew my sword. “So this is the blade that took Crysalia’s horn” he said.

I heard a slash and my wings fell below me. Discord turned me back so I was facing him. “Now you get to watch while I finish off your team.” He bore a toothy smile and continued. “And to make sure you don’t do anything funny…” He thrust my own sword through my chest and tossed me aside. The pain was extreme, and I was unable to move as I watched my team.

Jon was the first to jump towards Discord. Discord snapped his paw, and Jon turned to stone. Discord walked up to the statue of Jon and with a flick of his finger tipped the statue over, causing it to break into pieces on the floor. Gabriel threw his axes, trying to catch Discord off guard. Discord caught the axes and threw them back; one of the axes struck Gabriel between the eyes, and the other decapitated him. Matthew did a flip, and attempted to slice Discord with his scythe. Discord simply snapped his fingers again, and the two switched places at the last second. Matthew fell into two pieces, and Discord laughed. Luke spun his sword-staff and unleashed a giant and furious wall of blue fire; Discord opened his mouth and devoured the flames. Luke sat there, stunned as Discord belched, launching a stream of green flames.

“Excuse me,” Discord said.

The flames cleared, and there was nothing left of Luke.

“Quick ponies, the Elements,” Twilight said.

“Na-ah-ah”, Discord said in a singsong voice. He used his magic and snatched all of the Elements of Harmony. “The last time I was defeated, it was because I was too careless.” Discord clenched his fist and the Elements were crushed to dust.

I sat there and watched as this played out. Suddenly, I found the strength to stand, and I pulled the sword out of my chest. My vision was shaky, but I was able to make out Discord advancing to the ponies.

“Now, for my revenge,” Discord said. “I think I will start with you, Twilight.”

I threw my sword at Discord, and it cleaved off his antler. He turned to me with hate in his eyes.

“You!” he hissed. He used his magic and threw me back against the wall of the throne room, where I collapsed. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” He used his magic again, and launched my sword at me; the blade struck my left shoulder, and I let out a scream of pain.

“When will you realize that the power of friendship is pathetic? You lost; your friends are dead; and the Elements of Harmony have fallen to the power of Chaos! Friendship is weak!”

I stood up again, and pulled the sword from my shoulder. It began to glow.

“No, you’re wrong,” I said. My sword grew brighter and brighter. “Friendship is stronger than you will ever know, and it will always win!”

Suddenly, my sword started shooting bolts of light in different directions. I saw them change shape; my friends, I could see figures of my friends made from the light from my sword! There was Jack and Spencer first.

“I leave for a few days and look what happens to my team!” Jack said, sarcastically.

The rest of the Dragon Knights appeared, and so did the dragons.

“Show this bucker the real power of friendship,” Hunter said.

“Friendship is magic, and always will be,” Luke said.

Light started to flow from my ghostly friends to me. I felt strong, and two magical wings made from light formed on my back. I started to rise in the air. The light-dragons breathed a celestial fire around the remains of the Elements of Harmony and the Elements were restored. Discord looked panicked, and was frozen with fear at what was happening.

“Now girls! Hold Discord in place with the Elements!” Twilight said.

The "mane six" used the elements, and a magic rainbow wrapped around Discord, trapping him in place.

I rose to the ceiling of the room with my magical wings and I raised my sword above my head, allowing its light to radiate throughout the room. I looked at Discord; there was fear in his eyes.

“You will never defeat the power of friendship!” I screamed. I shot towards Discord at blinding speed. “Angel’s Strike!” With that, I struck my sword in the heart of Discord, and the being slowly turned to stone.

“Nooooooo!” he yelled, before fully calcifying.

Just like that, it was over. I fell to my feet, and walked towards Rainbow Dash. I collapsed--of course I did, I was bleeding profusely from my chest. Tears were forming in Rainbow Dash's eyes. I smiled and spoke.

“I guess--I’m gonna be breaking that promise I made you,” I said.

“No don’t say that,” Rainbow Dash said.

The rest of the "mane six" all had tears in their eyes and started to cry as well.

“Rainbow Dash,” I started, “This whole experience was a dream come true to me.”

Rainbow Dash had tears flowing down her face.

“I never thought I’d ever see this world, but I did. I am glad I was able to protect it. I know I’m just a human, so I don’t expect you to feel the same, but I never expected I would ever fall in love with a mare as amazing as you.”

Rainbow Dash embraced me, her tears starting to fall on my face.

“You were the one who left me that apple cider in the hospital, weren’t you?” she asked.

I returned her embrace. “Yes,” I said.

“Don’t leave me” she sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” I replied.

The rest of the mane six were crying as hard as I had ever seen them cry.

“Don’t leave me,” Rainbow Dash said again, “because I love you too!”

Suddenly, my armor started to glow. It grew bright and engulfed me in its light. I felt my wounds heal, and I started to change. My armor started to fuse to me and me to it. The light that circled around me then suddenly stopped. I fell to the ground; I felt different. I looked at Rainbow Dash, and she looked surprised.

“You’re… a pony!” she yelled.

I looked at myself. I was a pony, and an alicorn at that. My coat was black and my mane was green and spikey. It reminded me of Mercury.

“My my, I knew my armor was special, but I never expected the power of love could make it do this,” Rarity said with amazement.

“What’s his cutie mark?” Pinkie squealed.

I looked at my flank and saw my cutie mark was the Dragon Knight emblem. I looked at Rainbow Dash, and she looked at me. She smiled and tears formed in her eyes again, but these were tears of joy. We embraced each other again.

“I guess I’m no longer a two legged, wingless wannabe,” I said jokingly.

She sniffed. “Shut up,” she said in a relieved tone.

Chapter 7: Old History

We left the moon with the Elements of Harmony. Since Discord was gone, the moon city collapsed. Like Shining Armor had predicted, the news of Discord’s defeat caused the griffin and changeling forces to stop their attacks. I and my fallen comrades were awarded the Equestrian Arrow of Duty, the highest honor in Equestria. The following week, a public funeral was held for the fallen Dragon Knights and a memorial was made for all the fallen bronies of the war. It had been three years since I had traveled to Equestria and now I finally got to see the peaceful land I had heard of. All of the remaining bronies were turned into ponies with the magic of Celestia and Luna, and we all became official citizens of Equestria.

The rest of my story is history. After the war, I moved to Ponyville. It’s not that I didn’t like Canterlot, it was that all Canterlot had to offer me was sad memories of my comrades. I bought a small patch of land from the Apple family and built a house on it, and spent most of my time with Rainbow Dash. I spent almost a year in Ponyville, and I eventually worked up the courage to ask Rainbow Dash to marry me. The funny thing was, I had stared death in the face plenty of times, I had narrowly escaped a bolt from an OFC, and I had fought Discord himself, but asking Rainbow Dash to marry me was probably the scariest thing I had ever done in my life. After we were married, the word spread that the Hero of Equestria was married to the Sonic Mare. A few years went by and we decided to have a baby, because we both felt we were missing something from our lives. We had a young stallion-pegasus. When it came to choosing him a name, I remembered the words of my dragon Mercury.

“Remember the fallen.”

We decided to name that foal after the two comrades who fell on that one mission that changed the war, we gave him a true warrior name, a true human name--we named him Jack Spencer.

Epilogue

Jack Spencer shut the book his father had given him.

“Now you know” his father said. Jack’s father put the book back in the box and returned it to the compartment in the cloud wall.

“Did that help you, son?” Jacks father asked.

Jack simply nodded and smiled.

“Jack!” a voice called.

Jack turned to see his friend Shining Dawn.

“Go play,” Jack’s father said, with a smile on his face.

Jack Spencer returned the smile, then took to join his friend.

“You won’t believe, but my dad is the coolest pony in Equestria,” he started to say.

The little stallion and the filly took off. Jack's father watched his son with joy.

“You seem to be in an especially good mood today.”

The stallion turned around to see his wife Rainbow Dash.

“I’m so glad we decided to have him,” Jack’s father said.

“Me too,” Rainbow Dash replied.

The two ponies kissed and watched the sky.

“Aaaaaaand I’m bored,” Rainbow Dash said, “do you wanna have a race?”

“Am I a pony?” Jacks father replied with a smirk on his face.

The two ponies took off as fast as they could, flying over the clouds over the magical land of Equestria.

The End.