Brothers

POOF! October woke up to a pillow in the face. He looked at Jason, who smirked at him mischievously. October knew that smile. It meant it was time for them to do drills. A grueling full two hours of pure hardcore training agony. They had to do this in order to always stay fit and ready. Why the smile on Jason's face? Everyone knew that, even although he was strong, October...hated...drills. And at four in the morning no less.

"October, time to get up," Jason teased, getting a groan from his little brother.

October was introduced to another pillow, this one being a bit less friendly than the last. "Alright, I'm up! Jeez," October grumbled. He stood from his bed and stretched, though he let his wings drag on the floor as he felt far too tired to pick them up at the moment.

"Cheer up bro. At least flying is part of our training sessions now," Matthew said in hopes to get the grump out of him.

October heaved a sigh, picked up his wings, ruffled his feathers and folded them back up. They headed out side and behind the Boutique, so as to hopefully not disturb anyone that may have been out.

Drill One: Push-ups

The three brothers dropped down and simultaneously began the first drill. Ten...twenty...thirty...forty...fifty...sixty...seventy...eighty...ninety...one hundred - each popped tall at the call of one hundred.

Drill Two: Hindu Squats

Ten...twenty...thirty...forty...fifty...sixty...seventy...eighty...ninety...one hundred squats.

Drill Five: Six Inches

Each brother laid themselves on the ground with their hands under their bums for support and popped the feet...hooves...up six inches off the deck, laying there for about the next half hour. In Octobers opinion, that was the worst exersice ever...aside from cleans of course.

Drill Four: Load

The brothers found themselves a ten foot long, one and a half foot wide log to use for this drill. This work out was particularly challenging in its own way; because if one was out of sync with the others, it could cause the entire thing to run a muck, usually ending with October face down in the dirt with a log on his back.

They heaved the log up to their chests and began to jog to the edge of the forest and back five times. When done with those rounds, they stood in a line - one brother behind the other - and lifted the log to their right shoulders. They pressed it up and over their heads and brought it down to their left shoulder and alternated, and continued this for about ten minutes.

Drill Five: Flight

They drew a starting line at the edge of town and made a turn around point at the peak of the castle. Matthew signaled the go, and immediately they shot off in a cloud of dust. Ten times around the track they went before landing back at the starting line. That was when October noticed a small crowd of early risers forming to watch them. October chuckled and subtly pointed it out to Matthew and Jason, who chuckled to themselves as well.

They continued to do these drills in rounds and several more over, and over, and over again until it was the times when the sun rose up. By that time many ponies had gathered round about to see the spectacle of the three.

The ponies that watched these three from a fair distance began to mummer among themselves. What the brothers were doing wasn't altogether immensely impressive, but it defiantly showed their strength as a team with some of the things they did. But one particular rainbow maned mare stood out in the crowd with her face scrunched in thought.

Rainbow Dash had been sitting there, watching these three brothers do drill, after drill, after drill, while they were dripping with sweat and yet pushing through like there was no tomorrow. Of course, her pride wouldn't allow her to admit it but, they were showing themselves to be far stronger and tougher than she. She was amazed at how long they could keep this up, seeing as the Royal Guard never even trained this intensely. To put another paper on the stack, their wings were gigantic; far larger than even Celestia's. Nopony had wings of that size. There was something about October though that stuck out at her; something unnerved her for some reason, but she just couldn't put her hoof down as to what it was. So far as to what she had seen of him, October was a pretty cool guy, but there was something off about him -
she could feel it.

Rarity had finally woken up from her sleep and left to see about the party that was to be held in the castle. This was the first time that a party was to be held there, which made everypony that much more exited - and Pinkie Pie in particular, who had used up almost every bit of her time to dedicate her effort into this party.

Applejack busied herself to ask the Iron brothers if they could help Big Mac at Sweet Apple Acres to give them a good distraction for a while (though she never hinted to them about a distraction), seeing as how there were plenty of trees to buck and that she was to be helping with the party as well and the brothers couldn't be around while the party was in preparation, now could they?

At arriving at Sweet Apple Acres, the brothers were introduced to Big Macintosh, Applebloom, Granny Smith and a little hyperactive border collie with the name of Winona. Big Mac instructed them to the trees that needed bucking first and showed them how it was done. Mac gave a mighty kick to the trunk of an apple tree, causing each of the apples to fall and land into there respective buckets that were placed under said tree with acute accuracy. Jason wondered at the skill and years in practice it must have taken to be able to know just where the buckets should be under the trees as he watched Mac slam his hooves into the tree trunk.

They went over to the next tree, this one being for October to try. Although the man was used to picking apples rather than bucking a tree for them, he lifted his right hoof - more or less as was demonstrated by Mac, and gave it his strongest hip shot kick. The kick not only got the apples out of the tree, but left a large, deep hoof print in the trunk.

Mac looked at him with wide eyes for a solid five seconds before saying, "Maybe a little softer would do ya just fine. Don't want ya to be hurting our trees, now would we?" He began to chuckle a bit as they headed for the next tree nearest them. Jason quickly learned the method Mac used to catch the apples just right as he had observed Mac placing them. There was a small ring of buckets put under any general large grouping of apples, while there was another ring outside of that with buckets all snugged up to each other to catch any apples that strayed too far. Even after several tried however, Mac still had to arrange the buckets himself, seeing as how he had more practice with it and they couldn't afford to be wasting apples.

With four hundred sixty-three apple trees thoroughly bucked and at least five times as many full buckets, the sun was nearing the horizon, signaling for Mac that it was time to show the brothers to their the big party.

"Alrighty y'all," Mac announced with a satisfied nod at the brothers labor. "Thank ya for the help. I really appreciate the time and effort you've given so, this is yours." Mac hoofed three bags of many - what were called 'bits' to each of them. "We best be getting you three back to town now. Come on."

"Thank you very much, Mac. We really weren't expecting pay," said Jason as he uncinched the bag to look at the pieces of gold that the bag held

"Well, I would never work nopony for free," replied Mac as if it should be obvious as he began to walk towards Ponyville with the brothers in tow.

The walk to town was quiet, as they simply took in the scenery. Jason took notice of the obvious lack of occupants, prodding the question out of his mouth, "Where is everybody."

Mac took a second to register the difference in his grammar before looking around and gave him a well faced 'I-don't-know' look.

Jason didn't let the thought go as he thought of what Rarity had said about a welcome party...oh, duh, Jason thought to himself as he smiled at the townsfolk's lack of cover up skills.

October on the other hand was still spacing off, thinking of how cool it would be to get some horse shoes, not even noticing the fact that there was no one around town. They arrived at Rarity's Boutique, but to his confusion, they continued onward toward Twilight's castle. "Uuuh, Mac?", October piped up. Macintosh looked back, but before October could speak, he caught out of the corner of his eye Jason giving him the 'I-know-what's-going-on-and-you-don't' look, shutting Octobers mouth. He hated it when Jason was so observant sometimes.

They stopped at the door of the castle. October didn't understand way they were there and not a Rarity's, but he was about to find out.

"Do we have a spontaneous meeting with Twilight or something?" October asked Mac.

"Eyeup," replied Mac with a small smirk. That's when it bowled over October that the town was eerily quiet - as if a bomber had just flown overhead.

Mac opened the door to relieve the dark entrance hallway of the caslte to the outside light, though it still gave little illumination. The four walked inside as Mac closed the door behind them, cutting off all light that was previously available. They waited for a solid ten seconds before they were suddenly assaulted by light, and a very loud, "SURPRISE!"

October blinked a few times to adjust to the light before he looked around the main hallway to see that the entire town was there. Pinkie had even put up a 'Welcome To Ponyville' banner with streamers hanging off of it. So, very, cheesy...I like it., October thought to himself. There was suddenly a loud thunder to the right of him, causing his entire body to freeze up as he clenched his eyes and grit his teeth. There was only one device he knew of that made a bang quite like that. However, he slowly opened his eyes and turned right to what he believed was a mortar cannon, but what he saw was not quite that. With a blue tinted cast of what could have been carbon steel and a ten inch, smooth bore, Pinkie had fired off her famous party cannon - one of her signature belongings.

October, hoping no one had taken notice of his freight, played the noise of the cannon over and over again, determining to have the sound ingrained in his mind. As he thought about it within a matter of seconds, October thought to himself, The noise was far too hollow to be a mortar, so seeing now that it's a party cannon makes more sense. Hm. Actually, I don't think that's steel. It looks more like aluminum. But if they know how to purify the bauxite, then what else can they do that I don't give them credit for?

While October was not the most intellectual of minds, he made it his business to analyze anything that may be even remotely threatening and determine it's content. He was a survivalist that way. Needless to say, the fact that they have methods for electrolysis put him off, especial given the Medieval European style of everything - brick housing, thatched roofing, bladed weapons of combat for their military, etc. Though perhaps they never really developed the technology, but rather used magic by some means for the process. He thought as his mind trailed of to Twilight's magic demonstrations.

October was shaken from his thoughts as Jason's shoulder lightly brushed against his as he walked by. Jason had seen within that short moment that October was almost panicking and so gave him a subtle reminder to focus on the world around him. The brothers proceeded to walk down through the throng of ponies, being introduced to many of them by who else but the one and only Pink Pony of Parties herself. There was Colgate, Readheart, Clean Cut, Roseluck, Derpy Hooves, Time Turner, Cherilee, Carrot Top and so on and so forth down the line of ponies. There was one pony however, that seemed to be trying desperately to get their attention. October took notice of the sea foam green unicorn, towing along with her a peach colored earth pony with a pink and purple curled mane. She and her friend eventually made their way through the crowd to where the three were standing.

"Hello my name's Lyra and this is my friend Bonbon!" said the little unicorn with a very high pitched squeak. "Oh, sorry. Let me try again," she said in an attempt to correct her manners. "My name is Lyra Heartstrings and I'm Ponyville's local anthropologist. I've been fascinated with the legends of humanity all of my life and...oh sweet Celestia...hands!" she almost screamed.

"Uh, yeah. Lyra, for as long as I've known her, has had her muzzle poking through human mythology. She was ridiculed sometimes for her claims that humans were in fact real and that they made metal birds because they had no wings or that they had no magic...and some other odd things. Anyway, it's an honor to meet you three," Bonbon said for Lyra, who at this point was practically drooling over October's hands. "As for her thing with hands, she says they are the ultimate tool for acting upon the ingenuity of imagination, so there's that." Bonbon continued as she prodded Lyra's cheek a bit, trying to get her attention.

October reached out his hand to Bonbon in greeting, saying, "Nice to meet you Bonbon, and you as well Lyra. My name is October."

Lyra still had her eyes glued to his hand, watching every movement as she became entranced by the way the fingers moved in fluent waves and ripples. She suddenly shook her head with realization before too taking his hand with a firm shake.

"Uhh, Red?" Matthew put in. October inwardly cringed a bit at the name, as he didn't except it, yet managed to smile at the memories of 'earning' it.

"Sorry, these are my brothers, Matthew, and Jason," October said as he introduced them to Heartstrings.

"I'm sooooo happy to have met you three! It's just that everypony thought that I was crazy for thinking that humans could possibly existed and yet here you are! Excuse me, I have some gloating to do. It was wonderful meeting you three!" And with that Lyra skipped off, Bonbon following with a smile and a roll of her eyes.

The three brothers laughed as Heartstrings skipped off with Bonbon before being interrupted by a shout.

"TOOOOOOOOBYYYYYYYYYY!"

"Toby?" October inquired right before a mass of pink hyperactiveness covered his vision. October was tackled to the floor before he could move out of the way of the pink missile that he saw flash in the corner of his eye. Being hit before he could move was really not something he was used to, though that hardly mattered at the moment, seeing as he was being put into a vice-like hug by Pinkie. "Guys...a little...help," he managed out as he kept his breath in. Pinkie was surprisingly strong for her delicate looking frame. His brothers helped him up and tried to pry the girl off of their brother, only to be tackled themselves. "Matthew, Jason, I'm soooooo happy you all made it!" Pinkie shrieked with excitement.

"Likewise," Jason wheezed. "How come Red gets a new nickname? What about us?" he jokingly whined with a smile.

"Red?" Pinkie asked. Jason pointed to October, who was raising an eyebrow at his famed name, having not been called that for some time. "Oooooooh. Well ya see, I came up with Toby because October takes to long to say, so I just took the -tober part and turned it into Toby. But I can't think of something good for you two unless I called you Matty and Jasey, but that's just silly 'cause nopony says that." Then with a bound she was off again and said, "Berry Punch is calling for some sugar. Be right back!"

October found a chair to sit down in as he rolled over some thoughts in his mind. Last time someone actually took the time to throw a party for him was on his seventeenth birthday. April worked so hard to--Rrr! Can't be thinking about that.

"Hey," Matthew said as he place a gentle hand on October's shoulder. "April's fine. Heck of a lot better than we ever are right now."

"Do you have to constantly monitor me like that? I don't really like that 'mind reading' thing you do," October replied as he brushed Matthew's hand off, "First of all, your constant watching is sort of creepy. Second, I'm not a baby. I can watch myself. You of all people should know."

That being said October walked off in a huff. "Red, come on. He means well and you know it," Jason said as he walked up to him.

"Do you have to call me that?" October said as he whipped around, trying to control his emotions. When October got a little fumed, he was prone to stay that way for a while and his brothers only seemed to be fueling the fire.

"First off, you earned it. It may not come with the best memories but still, you earned it. Secondly, getting mad at welcoming party over something like this won't leave a good impression. Control your anger," Matthew rebutted

October sighed deeply as he relented his anger. " Yeah, alright."

"Now, what about that party. Bet you can't eat as much pie as I can," Jason said as he nudged October in the ribs, putting a smile on his little brother's face.

"Yeah right. Last time you tried to eat half as much as me, you nearly threw up," October replied with an evil smirk.

"Chicken?" Jason prodded back.

"Ohohho! Your goin' down boy."

"Watch who your calling 'boy' boy."

And with that they were off in a flash to the pie eating competition.

Everything was cold and yet, at the same time, blistering hot. The surrounding air was unbearably humid and like that of a thick, black fog. Here there was only pain and suffering for eternity. Most had given up all hope of escaping this hell, but the few that persisted were always found out and brought back in to be tortured. One, however, found the will to stand with all odds against him.

You might have defeated me once before little princess, but this time, I will not fail. Tirek thought to himself as he slammed his claws into the stone wall.

When Tirek was sent back to Tartarus, he of course lost all the power he gained...again. However, even with the very few magical creatures that ended up here, from them he was able to at least gain a bit of his former power.

Tirek climbed the side of a cliff that seemingly lead up to nothing but more cliff being shrouded in the darkness. After what seemed like hours, he finally reached a red, stone ceiling. According to his calculations, the next rift between Hell and Equestria should be about right here. With a mighty heave and a magic powered blow, Tirek cracked the ceiling above him. Several minutes of punching stone revealed light from above. Tirek drove his fist into the crack once more, making it big enough for him to put his hand through. He reached out to the top of the hole to feel hot sand beneath his claws. Just as he began to pull himself out with what he thought to be victory, he hear laughing from below. "You really believed that you could evade me, Tirek?"

The demon turned to see a misshaped figure dressed in black robes, hovering with massive, red, leathery wings. Satan, the supposed King of Hell himself, or formerly know as Lucifer. His name, 'Lucifer' , as unfitting for him as it was, meant 'Wielder of Light'. His new name however meant 'The Accuser', which suited him well. In one of his claw like hands he held a double bladed sword, the back side of which was crafted of steaming ice and the front of the blade was made from fire that rolled and licked along the length of the weapon as it hungered for flesh.

"You will not stop me, Lucifer," Tirek snarled as he looked at Satan with vengeful hatred.

"I'm so sorry, but Lucifer is not here. Don't you realize who your talking to?" Satan retorted with a smirk as his light, British accent flowed from his tongue like oil, though it carried the painful, cutting edge of truth in his words, for Lucifer had long since past to give way to the merciless beast he now was.

Without hesitation, Tirek fired a weak bolt of red magic at Satan, who deflected it with ease.

"Is that the best you have? You're pathetic," Satan said with amusement before he grabbed hold of Tirek by the neck and began to slowly pull him back, forcing him to let go of the ledge.

In a last ditch effort, Tirek fired another spell. This spell, being thought at the spur of the moment was meant for dominance of ones mind. This spell meaning little the 'King of Hell', was also deflected off of his chest. The spell bounced off of the Dark Lord and out the crack.

The crack was then sealed behind Tirek as Satan began to laugh at his failed attempt. "Without my permitting it you will never see your ever so precious Equestria. Honestly, how did Father approve of such a name? Oh, and by the way, Tirek..." With a strike too fast for the eye to see, Tirek was smacked the entire three thousand or so feet down to the cold ground, "I AM YOUR GOD!"

There was a sickening smack, followed immediately by that sounds of howling pain. Tirek lay face upward, bleeding out of every hole in his body while Satan laughed hysterically at his broken form. Satan plunged his sword into Tirek's chest and left it there to marinate in sizzling centaur flesh, while, at the same time, his body began to freeze over.

Tirek cried out in pain and, once again, the King of Darkness laughed at his antics. "I told you what would happen if you tried to escape, boy," Satan said as he wrenched the sword from Tirek's chest, receiving another cry of pain from the centaur. Satan dragged the centaur by his hooves and threw him into a frozen jail cell. "I'll leave you here until I can figure out what to do with you." The Devil said with a smug smile.

As the false king left, Tirek began to smile, and even laugh despite himself. Satan had been foolish enough to actually let Tirek's magic out into the mortal world. He felt his magic weakly move around the planet until it hit a large reptilian like creature near...Ponyville...how convenient.

"Hey, Pinkie!" October yelled, "Ya think you can get a bucket for Jason? He's not looking to well!"

"Oki-Doki-Loki!" replied Pinkie as she zoomed off, only to be back in the blink of an eye with a bucket. October grabbed the bucket and ran over to Jason, and just in time too. Jason heave up three apple spiced pies. What a waste.

"Jason, sack racing after eating three pies? You're nuts," October lectured.

"Yeah well you ate SIX, then went bobbing for apples. How do you eat so much?" complained Jason as his little brother patted him on the back.

"Practice dear Jason, pract..."

RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAH! An earth shaking roar echoed through the town of Ponyville, grabbing every single being's attention in an instant.

"What was that?" Matthew asked as he walked over to the both of them.

BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! The sound of thundering footsteps got louder and louder, until it could be confirmed that whatever it was was heading for Ponyville. The Iron brothers walked outside to see the problem. About a mile off from town, was a two story tall, five headed, flippin' hydra.

"Wow. Talked about a party pooper," October commented nonchalantly.

"We're in for a massive buffet, boys!" Matthew said, his teeth glimmering in a smile as he took flight.

The other two followed in his lead. October helped Jason to his feet, seeing how he still wasn't all too well.

When Fluttershy went outside with the rest of the Main Six and saw the hydra stomping towards the town, the first thing she did was run back inside the castle. The rest of them however, got ready for a little skirmish. Twilight and Rainbow Dash took to the sky for an aerial assault, while Applejack, Pinkie and Rarity began throwing all they had at the beast from underneath.

Twilight began throwing just about every kind of spell she could think of at the hydra. Anything ranging from Beast Bomb to Reptilian Replant she used, but nothing seemed to work for some reason. Rainbow Dash wasn't fairing any better, as she was tried to ram herself into one of the hydras eyes, only to be swatted out of the sky. The hydra continued to rampage, crushing the buildings beneath it's feet that, thankfully, were not being occupied at the moment. Rarity was throwing jewels - really big jewels - at the hydra's various heads to keep it distracted while Applejack and Pinkie stretched out a rope, hopping to make it stumble. At first the plan seemed to be working until the center head lowered, bit down on the rope, and tossed the two earth ponies aside.

"Wait, where is Fluttershy?" inquired Rarity as she dove for cover beside Twilight to get out of the way.

Just a few moment after her questioning, Fluttershy made her appearance. She looked to be no longer a shy , meek, little pegasus. She was furious. She flew straight up to the center head and said with a voice like thunder, "HOW DARE YOU HURT MY FRIENDS LIKE THAT!"

She simply got a nasty roar in reply, so she decided to resort to The Stare. As she began staring into the eyes of the hydra, she saw what had the beast so angered. For a moment she peered into the mind of the monster. She saw not the peaceful mind of a hydra as would be normal, but instead she saw absolute pain in it's eyes; pain of insanity. Fluttershy stopped The Stare and simply looked at its eyes, eyes that were red hollows of madness.

BRRRRRRRRRRAP!

Fluttershy put her hooves to her ears from the sudden noise that cracked the air. Immediately after could be heard the shrieks of agony from the hydra. Fluttershy looked back at the hydra to see three of the heads hanging limp and pouring with blood, while the other two writhed about in pain for their loss.

Matthew aimed his Mini 14 as best he could as the last two heads flailed about. As if to make it all the more difficult, Fluttershy was hovering right in the way as Jason was flying about the beast keeping it occupied because of his demonstration of his superior agility to his brothers. This also prevented October from being allowed to go berserk on the thing for fear Jason and Fluttershy would get caught in the crossfire. This job needed precision, and although Matthew was no sniper, he could make a crack shot with his choice weapon any day.

BAM! One head went limp. The hydra began to stumble back to the forest, but as it reached the edge of said forest, Matthew took the last shot. BAM! The bullet sliced its way through the air, making it's path true and hitting it's mark, ripping a gaping hole in the eye of the hydra. The hydra stumble for a few more seconds before falling over and flattening out a few trees.

"YES!" shouted Matthew as Jason landed next to him and threw up again. Matthew patted him on the back. "That was awesome, Jason! How many guys do you know that can do that, huh!?" In response, Jason showed three fingers. "Okay well duh. Way to ruin a compliment." Matthew said to himself.

They all grouped together where there new kill had fallen to take a breather. October noticed that the entire town gathered round them. Then Fluttershy slowly walked up to Matthew with tears in her eyes. She looked at the hydra for a few second, then back to Matthew as she looked him directly in the eyes and simply asked, "Why?"