Chapter 7: Conquest.

The group have spent five days in the city without a move, with the generals of the Serpony army and Featherfang debated on what moves should be made in the upcoming war.

Applejack waited outside the Serpony forge, waiting for Ryoma to give her and Vinyl a gift. He insisted that he forge the gifts himself, saying, “apprentices of a swordmaster need the same armor as their master, as it fully complements their style of combat.”

Sure, Ryoma.

“Applejack, he’s been in there since Midnight, and now it's almost noon!” Vinyl said.

“Ah wonder what’s keeping him.”

“Beats me! I wonder if he fell asleep in there or something,” Vinyl replied.

Though both of them knew it wasn’t true, because they could still hear the sound of hammers and the cooling of metal.

“Applejack, may I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“Who’s side are you on?

Applejack hung her head low, “I...I don’t know. I want to see my friends, to be there with them when the invasion begins. But my heart is torn in two. Ah’m divided on the whole thing.”

Vinyl nodded, “I feel the same way. But I decided to stand with Featherfang.”

“But why? Why would you stand with the stallion who wants to bring Celestia’s rule to an end?”

Vinyl looked towards the north, where Equestria was, and said, “I do it for my friends.”

“Your friends? No offense Vinyl, but how are you going to help your friends if they are fighting against you?”

“Because i’m freeing their lives from Celestia. Ever since that day, when I saw the guard slash Lyra’s throat open with his sword, I knew I had to join the jungle ponies and help them in their conquest of Equestria,” Vinyl answered.

Applejack was confused, “There’s more to that, ain’t there?”

Vinyl nodded, “Yes… there is. You see, this may sound crazy, but I believe that Celestia is not Celestia. I think there is an imposter sitting on the Canterlot throne. I KNOW that Celestia would never try to take precautions to kill an entire race of ponies that did no wrong. She just wouldn’t do that. If she was anything like that, she would of disposed Discord a while ago.”

“But how can you know for sure?” Applejack asked.

“I just know. It is a feeling. But if it’s true, we need to convince Featherfang to spare her once we reach Canterlot,” Vinyl said, “that is why I fight. I fight to keep my friends safe, even from themselves.”

Applejack knew that she wasn’t lying, as she was using her Honesty powers during the entire conversation. Applejack was then filled with a new resolve, one of purpose and duty. She now had a purpose to fight Celestia.

At the end of that conversation, Ryoma came out of the forge with two bundles. He placed them down and nodded to the two.

The two opened the bundles and found armor pieces that looked strikingly similar to Ryoma’s own armor. The two put on their armor.

Vinyl’s armor was blue in color. Her helmet was the classical kabuto style, but it didn’t have the mask. The rest of her body armor was like Ryoma’s,

Applejack’s armor was green in color, and, like Vinyl’s armor, resembled Ryoma’s body armor. However, her head armor was like Ryoma’s, except no side horns, and the design was able to let her mane flow freely from it. She had the chin armor, but the top part of the head armor was missing, which gave her plenty room for her stetson hat.

Ryoma nodded with approval, “now you both look like proper samurai.”

They both thanked him and made their way to the palace where the war council was wrapping up. When they arrived, Featherfang, Lyra, Gold Hoof and Star Reader were exiting the throne room with the five generals of the Serpony army.

The generals bowed to Ryoma and Featherfang, then went to prepare their armies.

As Featherfang engaged Ryoma in talking, Applejack was pulled aside by Star Reader. “I take it that you heard the news?”

“What news?” Applejack asked.

“The council decided to give an entire battalion to you, Vinyl and Ryoma. Each of you will control about one-third of the battalion's total soldiers,” Star Reader said.

“...Oh, um-”

“I don’t trust you, Applejack. You use to be one of Celestia’s lackeys. If you lead your troops to their deaths, or sabotage the entire campaign, I will kill you myself. The Serponies have been waiting for this for years, don’t screw it up,” Star Reader sneered

“Ehem.”

Star Reader turned to see Ryoma, who had the murder look on his face. “Were you threatening my student?”

“No, not at all my prince.” Star Reader said with stone-cold emotion.

“Then maybe you should be leading the army out of the city with the generals?” Ryoma said

Star Reader bowed, then turned and started off in the direction of the generals.

Vinyl, who was behind Ryoma, laughed and said, “geez, Ryoma. You made him your bitch.”

Ryoma shook his head, though a slight grin creeped across his face. He then said, “It is time to go. Let us lead our battalion.”

((()))

Applejack, Ryoma and Vinyl recieved a battalion of three hundred, and split it up between themselves, each receiving a hundred soldiers. The three samurai decided to name their companies after their armor, with some input from the soldiers. Vinyl’s company became the Blue Hundred, (creative bunch, aren't they?), Ryoma’s company became the Red Bloods and Applejack’s company became the Green Spears.

They joined the generals and Star Reader in the front. From there, they began the march. The destination? Ahuizotl’s domain.

They were coming over a hill in a jungle clearing when Applejack decided to see how large the army was. She galloped across the clearing and got on top of the hill to view the army. Her mouth almost dropped when she saw the sea of soldiers pour out of the jungle. Rows upon rows of glistening obsidian tepoztopilli - baring soldiers filled the clearing. The jaguar and eagle pony warriors were next to the generals and Star Reader. The Band of Gold marched with Featherfang. Pteradactyl riders and Carnotaurus riders were in small groups scattered in the main army, their pony riders each had a ten foot long version of a tepoztopilli that was made of serpent gold and edges of blood obsidian, so the lances themselves could withstand the impact of skewering a target when they were going forty five miles an hour. They also had macuahuitl on their backs. The riders wore a helmet similar to their eagle and jaguar cousins, but it was the in the likeness of their mounts.

The Pteradactyl and Carnotaurus riders would make any equestrian soldier flee, but that much prehistoric power backed up by an army and a demigod that radiated divine energy? Enemy soldiers might shit themselves.

But, if Applejack knew anything about the Equestrian army, it was that they had a belief that they shall endure through any battle, and still come out on top. The Serpony army had something too, religious and divine courage. So now it was a question.

What will prevail? The idea of righteousness? The will of a god? Only time will tell.

Soon, the embodiment of a years old struggle marched back into the jungle, snaking around trees like riverbeds, the army continued its zealous march into enemy territory.

Soon the army reached their destination.

Ahuizotl’s temple, the Fortress of Talacon, had archers along the sides and walls. The entrance to the inside of the fortress was cut off by a wooden fortification that was teeming with archers.

“Archers,” muttered Ryoma, “why did it have to be archers.”

Star Reader scanned the fortress with his eyes, “it seems that Ahuizotl rebuilt his base of operations… in order to get inside, we need to smash the barricade and storm the walls. Lord Featherfang shall fight Ahuizotl, and the first step of our conquest is complete.”

“And how do we plan on doing that?” Vinyl said.

Star Reader turned to Applejack and said, “she is going to lead the assault.”

Applejack's eyes widened, “now hold on! I never fought in a battle-”

Star Reader narrowed his eyes, “Applejack, i'm testing you. I will see for myself if you're loyal to our cause, or wanting to crawl back to Celestia. You will lead your Green Spears to distract the soldiers that are defending the fortification, while the Carnotaurus riders break down the fortification and the army swarms in afterwards.”

Ryoma shook his head, “i'm against the idea of sending Applejack onto the front lines like that. She still needs to learn-”

“I had enough of you! You will not challenge my authority again! You may be a prince of a distant kingdom, but I have waited for this moment my entire life. I will not be stopped by a potential betrayer and her teacher!” Star Reader nearly yelled. He turned to Featherfang and said, “well? Is the plan a go?”

Featherfang looked like he wanted to take Ryoma ’s side of the argument, but knew he couldn't disobey the stallion that sent his son to find him, only to never come back alive.

Applejack could see his reluctance to agree on Star Reader's plan, so she did something she never thought she do.

“I will prove my loyalty to the Serpony cause. I will do as you wish,” Applejack said.

Ryoma and Vinyl looked at her in surprise, but Star Reader raised his eyebrow. He said, “prepare your soldiers. We strike immediately.”

When he went to check on the main army, Ryoma turned to Applejack, “are you sure? There is a high probability that you may die.”

“I won't die, I got you guys,” Applejack said, “plus you guys will be joining me.”

“Yes, but that will be after you breakthough. We can only watch as you carve a path for us,” Ryoma said.

Applejack nodded, “then i'll make sure that i'm still alive.”

Ryoma put his hoof on her shoulder, “then may the Dawn Dragon guide you.”

Applejack bowed, then went to her troops.

(-~-)

Applejack stood in front of her troops, ready to commence the assault on the fortifications. She looked behind her and saw that the hundred Serpony that were under her command were itching for a fight. Her ponies were each equipped with feathered shields and tepoztopilli. A one-handed macuahuitl at their flank. Some had bows and arrows as well as atlatls to provide cover fire for the advancing brothers in arms.

Applejack was scared. She was downright scared of the battle that will happen in a minute. But she knew that she needed to help her friends, her home.

Thinking on that thought, Applejack pulled out the rectangular hilt and ignited the Darksaber. She held it above her head, and pointed towards the fortification, signaling the charge.

With Applejack in the lead, the Green Spears galloped into a charge towards the fortification.

The War of the Serpents had begun.

The enemy released a volley of arrows. Some of the stallions on the charge fell to the arrows. Two dropped dead next to Applejack, arrows lodged in their heads and throats. This had shaken Applejack, but she pressed on, hoping that the arrows would not kill her.

But some archer did aim at her, and fired.

Applejack had only a second to see the arrow coming for her, and a split second to do something. She held the Darksaber in front of her. After all, if it can block lightning, it could block an arrow.

True to her prediction, the arrow was destroyed when it touched the blade, its sharp head melting instantly when contact was made. Ahuizotl's soldiers saw this, and fired more. More stallions went down during that second volley, leaving Applejack with seventy-four soldiers of a hundred left.

Applejack then got struck with an arrow. It bounced off her body armor, but she was struck again with another that found her hat, taking it clean off her head.

This really pissed off Applejack. That and her soldiers dying in vain.

With the fury of a grief-stricken Dragon, Applejack charged and plunged the Darksaber into the fortification, using it to cut a hole into the wooden fortification. She carved through it easily, and came into the fortification, and was surrounded by many soldiers of Ahuizotl. One group surrounded her, while the other group was still firing at her soldiers. They drew their weapons and tried to stab Applejack all at once. Applejack instead swung the Darksaber in a wide circle, cutting all of their weapons in two.

The enemy soldiers had one second to think, “oh shit,” before Applejack got into Ryoma’s stance and attacked. She carved her way through soldiers left and right, her Darksaber cutting through everything it came into contact with. Spears, bows, swords, nothing could stand up to it. In thirty seconds, Applejack had a pile of cut in half or cut down enemy ponies at her hooves. Only one group of three stood between her and the archers, who did not take notice that a very angry samurai was slaughtering the ponies protecting them.

Applejack got into her stance and waited for one of the group of three to make a move.

One of the ponies patience wore out. He rushed at Applejack with a spear.

Applejack stepped to the side and cut the spear in half with a downward stroke. She then hit the pony in the face with the hilt of the Darksaber and finished with a stab through the heart. The pony slid off the Darksaber as charred guts spilled from his body and his buddies charging at Applejack.

Applejack ducked under a sword swing from one pony and blocked a strike from a war axe. The war axe was instantly was cut in half from the contact it made with the plasma blade, leaving the enemy defenseless. The other pony lunged at Applejack with his sword, but his attack missed when Applejack jumped out of the way so the sword impaled his buddy. While he and his buddy were in shock, Applejack decapitated the skewers enemy and turned her attention to the last pony.

The soldier was a bit shaken, and made another thrust. Applejack dodged and got in close. She shouted and kicked the enemy pony with one hoof, causing him to stagger. Applejack then followed up with a downwards diagonal slash that cut the pony completely in two.

With the Ahuizotl's vanguard gone, Applejack galloped into the archers and started to cut them all down. The archers that were a bit higher on the fortress were now taking aim at her, but the Pterodactyl force showed up and started to shoot at the fort defenders with bows from the back of their rides.

Applejack managed to get on top of the wooden fortification and started waving her Darksaber as a signal that the main army should be able to join the fight.

Star Reader frowned, but gave the signal for the Carnotaurus riders to charge into the wooden fortification and destroy it. With a mighty roar, the Carnotaurus ran at full speed at the wall. The surviving Green Spear soldiers galloped out of the way as the Carnotaurus riders rammed into the fortification, shattering the wood into splinters.

Applejack jumped from the ruined wall and was joined by Ryoma and Vinyl. Together, the three samurai got into their stances and began to fight the enemy infantry that was pouring out of the fortress.

(~-~)

Featherfang soared with the Pterodactyl fliers as they circled over the fortress, picking off archers with their own bows. As soon as enough soldiers were eliminated, Featherfang descended and landed onto the fortress. He summoned Wind Piercer and fought the soldiers guarding Ahuizotl's throne room. He swung the enchanted and legendary tepoztopilli and decapitated all three soldiers. He then entered the throne room.

The throne room was huge, just enough space for a fight. Next to the throne was a brazier, and in that throne, was Ahuizotl himself.

The wicked suppressor of Featherfang's ponies spoke, “I can't believe you made it this far.”

“You're Ahuizotl huh? I thought you would be more intimidating than that,” Featherfang snarled.

“Oh, I am,” said Ahuizotl as he grabbed three curved scimitars, two for his hands, and one for his hand on his tail, “and you will learn that I am, upon death.”

Featherfang and Ahuizotl charged at each other, determined to tear the other apart.

Featherfang struck at Ahuizotl with his weapon, but it was blocked by one of the scimitars and Ahuizotl slashed at Featherfang with his other scimitar. Featherfang dodged the blow and twirled his tepoztopilli. He then thrust the weapon into the floor, causing a whirlwind to blow Ahuizotl's weapons out of his hands.

Furious, Ahuizotl ran at as surprised Featherfang and grabbed him with his tail hand. He then threw Featherfang into a wall, causing the hybrid to drop his weapon. Ahuizotl threw his weapon to the other side of the throne room and grabbed Featherfang again. He slammed Featherfang into the wall, then slammed him three times into the floor. He then tossed the heir into the ceiling, and as the heir was coming down, Ahuizotl smacked him with his arm like a baseball bat and sent Featherfang flying into the throne, breaking it. Ahuizotl started to gloat, “this is the lost heir to a god? Heh, you're nothing but a pathetic little hitch, a trash collector in Ponyville. Did you think you could beat me in a one-on-one fight? You're incredibly naive.”

Featherfang could sense some of his ribs were broken, he vision was blurry. He tried to stand up, but wobbled and fell back down. He couldn't call for help, he couldn't defeat Ahuizotl. He wanted to curl up and cry. He had failed his people, his only chance of being loved instead of being looked upon as a sort of monstrosity that somehow lived by the grace of Tartarus.

Just as Ahuizotl was about to pick up one of his scimitars, a unicorn appeared in the entrance of the throne room.

Ahuizotl laughed, “what is this?! You're so weak that Lyra Heartstrings has to help you?! Bwahahahahahaha!”

Lyra held a macuahuitl in her hooves and said, “get away from him! You damn, dirty ape!”

Ahuizotl ran at her with his similar, performing a downwards strike that smashed the macuahuitl Lyra was using to splinters. He grabbed her throat and slammed her into the floor, causing her to cough up blood. He laughed insanely and brought his face close to Lyra's and said, “oh, i'm gonna have some fun with you as soon as I kill your heir. I'm talking about torture of all kinds, from physical to sexual!”

Choking and in pain, all Lyra could manage to croak was, “Featherfa...help.”

“Those words, I know that voice…,” Featherfang whispered to himself.

“Featherfang!” Lyra cried out as pain racked her body.

Featherfang snapped out of the trance of worthless thought. He was filled with rage, rage that makes dragons jealous. He roared his half eagle-half dragon roar and transformed into a sky serpent. He then launched himself at Ahuizotl, his eyes glowing with hatred and power. He tackled the tyrant and wrapped his serpent body around Ahuizotl, taking him off of Lyra. He roared in Ahuizotl’s face, causing the latter to try to free his arms in vain. The serpent Featherfang then clamped his jaws around Ahuizotl's right arm and tore it off. Blood spattered on the floors as Ahuizotl gave an ear piercing shriek of pain. Featherfang then threw the tyrant to the floor and reverted back to his normal self. He then produced a ritual obsidian dagger from seemingly out of nowhere. Ahuizotl was still writhing around in pain as Featherfang approached him. Featherfang then leaped on Ahuizotl and slashed below Ahuizotl's ribcage, causing another scream of pain from Ahuizotl's foul mouth and blood to squirt and splatter on Featherfang's coat. He then shoved his hoof into Ahuizotl's ribcage, searching for the only organ that could bring back Quetzalcoatl. Ahuizotl thrashed and screamed as Featherfang dug into his ribcage and started pulling.

With great effort, Featherfang pulled out Ahuizotl's still beating heart out of the tyrant’s chest. The last image that Ahuizotl will remember of this life is seeing his beating, bloodied heart. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he died as he lived, cowardly.

Featherfang held the heart aloft, giving a cry of triumph. He then remembered that Lyra was there, and ran over to her.

Lyra looked broken, but she was in much better shape than Featherfang himself was.

Suddenly, the Band of Gold galloped into the room. They looked around the room as if they were looking for Ahuizotl.

Then they saw his corpse.

They backed away from the corpse and they turned their attention to Featherfang.

“Stallord, what are your orders?” One of them asked.

“Get a healer, and quickly!”

One left the throne room to get the requested healer while the rest formed a protective ring around Lyra and Featherfang.

“You are going to be alright,” Featherfang said to Lyra. She replied, “and so are you.”

(<§>)

Applejack and Ryoma and Vinyl cut down the last enemy soldiers in the final hour of the battle. All three were exhausted.

Applejack extinguished her Darksaber and the other two samurai sheathed their katanas. They knew they won the battle because of the cheering and cries of joy when they saw Ahuizotl's body getting flung off from the top of the fortress.

But Applejack felt bad for those who couldn't celebrate, because they gave their lives to help strike down a tyrannical regime that suppressed their people for years. She knew that she lost roughly half her men and the same happened with Vinyl's Blue Hundred. Ryoma’s Red Bloods suffered the least casualties out of the three companies.

Regardless, all three had their chins raised high as Featherfang walked out an injured Lyra out of the throne room. The three watched as Featherfang flew into the sky and held out Ahuizotl's heart, something that brought a grimace of disgust from Ryoma.

Featherfang wrapped the amulet from the serpent statue around the heart and chanted in an ancient tongue. Soon, the three and the rest of the army felt the earth tremble, the winds whip, the trees groan and the fortress shudder. A light came from the heavens, then flashed like lightning. Instead of a light, a huge winged serpent appeared in the heavens. It was easily as long as five jungle temples lined up in a row, it's green and red plumage seemed to stain the clouds with the same color. Energy in the form of lightning zapped around its glowing blue eyes.

The divine beast gave a roar that was more dragon-like than eagle. The roar itself caused the winds to pick up and lash out like a hurricane.

The divine beast slowly looked down to the ground below and said in a booming voice that could shake mountains, “MY SON, I HAVE RETURNED. NOW THE TRUE CONQUEST BEGINS.”

Author's Note

It's shorter than my usual chapters, but I hope that isn't a problem. Anyways when you picture Applejack's armor, just Google Ryoma from Fire emblem fates and imagine his armor, but with Applejack in it and ponyfied, with her hat on top. I just thought the look was badass, so I included it in the story. She will be wearing that armor for all the battles to come. Another thing is that I listened to an Undertale remix of Asgore's boss fight theme by Hellkite when I was writing Ahuizotl's and Featherfang's fight to the death. So if you want epic music while reading the fight, that's a good tune for it. So yeah... wait fro the next chapter