Harmony: Equestria at War

With the two generals returned to their position and the sun rose again, everything was back on track. Within the week the two generals wasn’t here, those changelings and dragons had made huge progress moving north towards Central Equestria.

“We cannot afford to let those invaders reach Central Equestria. If they take over the centre of the land, it would only be a matter of time before they gain total control over the entire nation.” Celestia declared in the meeting.

“I thought those two races would kill each other off? Considering both the dragons and changelings are both aggressive towards everyone?” Eclipse asked.

“I’m sorry, Captain. As you can see, they had made it through the southern borders with ease and moved north in such great speed. We had reports that Apple Loosa was under attack yesterday. If they made it through the Everfree Forest, it would be a certain defeat for us.”

“Looks like they had figured out the old saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. So if they had actually formed an alliance to attack us…”

“Then we have our alliance to fight them back.” A familiar male voice crossed Eclipse’s ears.

“Captain?”

“I’m glad you still haven’t forget about me, son.” Captain Windspear got up from his seat and stepped towards Eclipse, struggling every step he made.

“Now my legs may not be as functional as it used to be, but my brain still do. I’ll stay in command centre to help you all proceed with the war.”

“That’s great! It’s good to have you back, old man!”

“Looking at you and this young colt here, just reminds me of all our previous memories, when I was the Captain, and you were the lieutenant.”

“Indeed, he is also exactly like me, when I was still a lieutenant.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but Captain Eclipse, I want your troops to be on the field within 24 hours to contain the situation before they breach through.” Celestia interrupted.

“Roger that, Your Highness. They shall not pass.”

*************************************************************************************

Eclipse stepped out of the castle dour after the conference along with his new lieutenant Sky Lannister. The two looked towards the south from the observatory deck of the castle. A bright blue sky with civilisation stretching towards the horizon. Wherever beyond the forest had been lost and controlled by enemies.

The Captain and the Lieutenant returned to Cloudsdale to prepare for the final assault to put an end towards the entire civil war. As Eclipse returned to the Headquarters, he could see Lightningbolt and Granite walking out of the military hospital. The two approached Bolt and Grand.

Granite looked really depressed, and Bolt also looked sad. Granite’s eyes were red, as if he just cried. He sniffed as he saw Eclipse and Lannister come near them.

“What is it Grand? I never see you this depressed…” Eclipse was a bit confused as he asked.

“It’s… nothing…” Granite responded, and purposely looked away to avoid eye contact with Eclipse.

“Tell me, dear. What happened?” He turned to ask Lightningbolt.

She pulled on the sleeve of his coat, pulling him away to talk, so that Granite wouldn’t hear what the two said.

“Obsidian… She didn’t make it…” She spoke.

“What? Is she…”

She nodded to Eclipse’s response. She leant on his shoulder to give him a light hug as her emotions flowed within her heart. He leant forward for the mare and gave her back a light pat.

“Poor little griffon… Granite…” He mumbled, not knowing what to say. He certainly knew how horrible it feels to lose the most valuable partner in your life. Eclipse knew how it hurts when he found Sky Striker lying there dead on the ground that day, Lightningbolt knew how it hurts when Eclipse was captured and she lost connection with him, and Sky Lannister also knew how it hurts to lose his older brother.

He walked back towards Granite and gently patted the griffon oh his back. He knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to accept this fact, just like that day when he lost his teammates and raged for so long. He still had to calm the griffon down and hope he would set this aside, as they must prepare for the attack before Equestria were lost.

“I’m so sorry for your lost, my brother…”

“It’s not your fault, Eclipse… It’s all my fault! I made Krossair the King, plunged this land into war, and she died also because of me…”

“Don’t blame yourself, Grand. We take care of ourselves and I’m sure she will guide your path. And because this land is in war, therefore we must be determined to win, so that her death would not be in vein.”

“You’re right but… I need a moment…” He walked away, alone. He was traumatised by Obsidian’s demise, but honestly, who wouldn’t? Having someone you value the most just pass away one day, and leaving you alone in the mortal realm, it is a very miserable and painful scene to even imagine.

Concerning Granite’s situation, Eclipse pulled Sky Lannister over.

“Keep an eye out on him. I doubt that he would do anything stupid, but it’s better safe than sorry. Just remember, loose follow. Give that griffon some time to calm down, we still have an operation tomorrow.”

Sky Lannister followed his command and left to watch over Granite. It was only Eclipse and Lightningbolt left standing there in the open field.

“Everything has their destiny. If her destiny is to leave, there nothing we can do, not even me. The fact is that she is gone now, and we have to move on. I know it’s hard for you, but with enemies right at our gates, we’ll just have to put it aside for now.”

She nodded again. It was easier said than done however, as she found herself couldn’t help but to think about this.

By the evening, Eclipse, Lannister, Granite and Lightningbolt were in the office, discussing the tactics for tomorrow’s assault. Granite looked a lot calmer that earlier that day as he didn’t cry, or show any signs of sorrow or depression, at least in his outside. Whatever he felt or thought inside his mind was left mysterious to everyone else but him.

“Lannister, as my lieutenant, you are now responsible of commanding the entire unit of Wonderbolts when I am not present. In this upcoming operation, I am assigning you to lead the general team of the Royal Air Force to join the assault along with the Royal Guards.”

“I am honoured to be responsible for this duty, sir.”

“It’s an important task, the difference between life and death. Don’t disappoint me.”

“I surely will not, sir.”

“Now, Grand, Bolt, you two are gonna follow me to lead ahead to focus our power onto the front forces while the major teams surround them. I had talked with my two brothers Shadestep and Lunar that, if we were really that unfortunate that our joint force lose to their joint forces, we would have to run all the way back up to Canterlot to use our final weapon.”

“What kind of final weapon? Fancy, doomsday bombs?”

“No explosions, Grand. It can be refer to as some ‘fancy magic stuff’ if you wish, but I would rather not to say it right now, as it might get pretty… nasty if we really were to use it.”

“Nevermind, I don’t want to know. All I care is with the combined forces of the Royal Air Force, Royal Guards, Sentinel Task Force, Griffonstone Royal Agents and so on, all of them, to fight those invaders off.”

“It’s just us three out there doing the hard work, big guns, big magics. Granite, you take a machine gun. Bolt, you do what you can as a forbidden alicorn. And I will use both big guns and big magic.”

“Fine. Whatever you say, me and my buddies will help you.”

“This is a war to end all wars.”

Eclipse stepped out of the office with Granite and Lightningbolt and Sky Lannister walked ahead and left to gather the team up to prepare for the attack. They planned to carry out the final attack to fight off and expel those invaders out of the lands.

As the sun went down the line of the horizon and daylight started to fade away fast, the team started proceeding to their objective. All of the units were summoned to Ponyville, the nearest infrastructure near Canterlot. After the crisis of Nightmare Moon’s rising, a majority of units assigned to the Southern Equestria was combat ineffective as no commands were given to them and they had nowhere to go but to stay and fight.

All units had suffered great casualties in previous battles, so the current forces left that remained combat effective were little in number. They were literally gathering all and any combatants that could still fight on the field for this one fight. With the order from Princess Celestia, the now official United Forces of Equestria had been established and now marching through the Everfree Forest to engage the enemy alliance.

They expected to see the crooked changelings and the dragons to be around the area. Since they had no evidence for the other minor races to have been eliminated in the war, like the vampire bat ponies and the zebras, they would have either joined the enemy alliance or just retreated to hide from the Equestria forces.

Since the crooked changelings was most well-known for their high reproduction rate and the quantity the queen could breed was just… enormous, they would have to account for the lack of number in soldiers in their forces with either fire power or strategy that can burn their numbers down to balance out the two sides power and for the Equestrians to gain the advantage to win, and so it is on paper, at least. Those changelings’ biggest weakness would be starvation, since they had almost no way of acquiring love to feed on, unlink the transformed changelings, unless those dragons did.

Inside the forest, the units had feelings that they were being watched although nothing could be seen around. The three commanders rushed ahead to get in position before the teams do. They had all their weapons and equipments ready.

“All units, be advised. This is Granite. We are seeing a large group of enemy converging towards our position fast. All units get into your position and ready to engage. I say again, all units get in position and prepare to engage.”

The teams moved in and formed a basin like placement to surround and contained the incoming forces inside them. The three commanders had readied their weapons as they commanded to attack the enemy forces that were closing in.

‘Here they come!” Eclipse yelled as he saw enemy forces swarmed into their area. He took aim with a .50 calliper sniper rifle and waited for the moment to come. As the enemy charged towards them, he ordered the team to engage.

“All unit, engage! Engage!”

He started to fire his rifle, which was set onto the roof of a car. Granite placed his machine gun on the hood of the car and fired away. Bolt was launching magics beams and shooting arrows. With their powers combined with the the remaining forces of the United Equestria, they managed to defeat a large quantities of crooked changelings. Although with their greatest effort, they still started to loose ground due to being outnumbered by the combine alliance forces of the enemy invaders.

Malachite was in charge of leading the Griffonstone Royal Agents to attack the enemy invaders, while himself also step into the badlands to fight. With his rifle, he swept the field in the front. He was running towards the enemies head on while firing, having almost no regard of his own safety but to kill every invaders.

Eclipse tried to aim away from his ally in the front to avoid shooting him by accident, while Granite seized fire eventually to join in the fight. He picked up his machine gun and jumped out from his cover and sprinted toward his buddy fighting in the front hard, under the cover from Eclipse and Lightningbolt.

He fired towards the front as he fired his gun, which he held in his claws with his strong muscle countering the recoil. He ran up to his buddy, which both saw the other. They both nodded, and the two stood back to back, firing their weapons at all angles.

“Dragons inbound!” Eclipse yelled through the radio as he saw the scaled, two-wing flying reptilians soared through the sky and approached the falling units.

“Command, this is Lannister! We are surrounded by enemy forces and are now combat ineffective, requesting immediate assistance!”

“Hang in there, Sky. I’m on my way!” Granite responded to Sky Lannister’s request and headed towards his position. Malachite followed and they moved away from their previous position as Eclipse took care of the few changelings that was attacking the two. Eclipse and Bolt also switched position to cover the two griffons as they moved. They moved up and hopped onto a pile of shipping containers with junk scattered on top. Eclipse moved slower than usual due to the weight of the rifle.

By the time he reached his new spot, the two griffon had already joined his lieutenant in fighting those fire-breathing reptiles. With the dragons’ high movement speed, sniping with a sniper rifle would be ineffective. Eclipse took out his old assault rifle rather than his Mark 14 to utilise the full automatic mode on the dragons.

There was on blue dragon, in armour, wielding a staff like weapon and sent fire bolts towards the team down there. Eclipse tried to fire on the armoured dragon, but she dodged. She took out a dagger, and she stabbed towards Eclipse, which he countered by blocking with his rifle. She continued her furious attack at the stallion, but Eclipse had successfully avoided all the slashes. She flipped her dagger and jabbed the blade right into the body on the body behind her. It was Granite.

Granite screamed as he dropped onto the ground with the blade deep in his back, near his heart. Eclipse was horrified, and he pulled out his sword and swung back towards the blue dragon. The dragon jumped a step backwards and dodged his blade. She escaped with a leap into the air, which the other dragons followed. Eclipse picked up his rifle again and tried to shoot any one of the dragons down, but he failed. The shots he fired missed, and those dragons fled.

All of their attention turned to the griffon lying on the ground, a dagger on his back and in a pool of his own blood. He felt his vision slowly fading, and his body getting weaker as the blood flowed out from his body.

“Granite! Granite! Look at me, son! You’re alright!” Eclipse yelled as he held onto Granite’s body.

“Eclipse… Bolt… Malachite… Sky…” He muttered in pain, and he struggled to keep his eyes open to look at the teammates that were looking at him, horrified and worried.

“Lannister! What the hell are you doing standing around? Get a medic!” Eclipse shouted at the young colt lieutenant as he turned his head, and Lannister followed his command.

“Grand… You can make it!” Malachite also yelled towards his best buddy on the ground.

Granite laughed weakly, and his breathing deepened.

“Malachite, you own the Empire now… Don’t disappoint me…”

“No! You will get up again and fight! You won’t leave us behind!”

“No… I know myself very well. One does not simply escape death twice. I killed Krossair, a redemption to what I had done wrong. Now, the divines wishes me to pay for my crimes, and I shall respond.”

“Grand…”

“My gun… Give it to me…”

“No! I do not allow you to end yourself! You still have a war to fight and an Empire to rule!”

“I’m bleeding out fast… I wouldn’t make it, and I know it. Eclipse, only cowards let fate determine their life. True heroes determine fate with their own life…”

“Eclipse! The medivac will take 15 minutes to arrive! They said air support is basically impossible right now and that is all they can offer!” Lannister notified the Captain.

“I will not make it, I’m sorry. Please, don’t let me die on that dragon’s claws. Let me do it myself…”

Eclipse remained silent. Without any kind of actual first aid available for him right away, there wasn’t anything they could do but let him bleed to his demise. Rather than a painful and slow death, one would simply prefer a quick end for all his pain.

He picked up Granite’s magnum and loaded the chamber with one bullet and slapped the cylinder back onto the revolver. Malachite pulled his hoof down and pressed the magnum revolver on the ground.

“Eclipse! Are you out of your mind?!”

“Let him… As King of Griffonstone Empire orders.” Granite struggled to get the words out.

With a little hesitation, he finally released Eclipse’s hoof. He stood up and stepped back in tears.

“Goodbye, my brother.”

Lightningbolt also backed away.

“Goodbye, Grand.”

Eclipse passed the revolver to Granite, which he pointed his gun to his head and cocked the hammer. Eclipse stood up and gave the griffon a salute.

“Send our regards to Obsidian when you meet her… Farewell, my brother.”

With that said, he backed away. Lannister stood next to his Captain as all of them observed the blood-soaked griffon lied there. Granite closed his eyes, and muttered,

“I’m coming back home, Obby.”

And with a ‘bang’, it was over. A coup de grâce performed by himself to end his own pain, and to escape the guilt of what he had previously done.

They closed back towards the griffon again. The griffon general, with a hole through his head, blood pouring out. The griffon lied there, dead.

“Lieutenant Lannister,” Eclipse sounded.

“What is it, sir?”

“Your brother’s dead have been revenged, so as the rest of Alpha Team.”

“What?”

“Remember you mentioned that the griffons might be involved in the invasion of the Crystal Mountains?”

“Yeah?”

“You were right.”

“Wait, so…”

“Yes, Granite killed your brother, the Alpha Team, and shot me.”

Lannister remained silent as he looked away from the griffon’s body. Eclipse signalled Malachite to take his lieutenant to take a break. It was probably too much for him.

Eclipse and Bolt were left staring at Granite’s body, as the two went speechless, even with the battle going on all around them. Eclipse sighed, and he kneeled down and picked up Granite’s .44 magnum revolver. He wiped the blood on the pistol off with his own coat, and sheathed the gun onto a holster on his belt.

Ironically, it started to rain as the battle went on and while the two was in mourning. The two was soaked in rain water while the body of their partner was flushed and cleaned, with the blood being washed away from his body.

They just stood there, staring at the body, until another swarm of changelings also moved in towards their position that the two reacted.

“Enemy forces incoming! Return fire!” Eclipse yelled to Bolt, as the two hid back behind the shipping container as the swarm moved in. He used Granite’s machine gun to counter the incoming forces. Enemy numbers weren’t huge, but they were heavily armoured and armed with guns. He knew it would be a tough fight for the two, as the other force continuously reported in claiming that they had went combat ineffective and was pinned down, some were executed during that time.

Lightningbolt also fired her magic beams as frequently as she could, but her power was drained quickly and she had to resort to using her physical weapon.

The Changelings reached the two, and Eclipse had to ditch the machine gun and pull out his sword to combat the enemies in close range. Bolt continued to fire at the other changelings to slow them down and buy Eclipse some time.

It was then until, Eclipse activated his ‘Nightmare Mode’ power and hopped out from his cover to swing his sword and protect his mare behind him, while the mare also provided support for him. He managed to drop a few of the heavy armoured changelings, before he started to get overwhelmed.

He battled hard, picking off his enemies one by one when the moment came for him to insert his blade to one’s throat.

When it was down to the last changeling standing, Eclipse was still holding himself off, but his strength was significantly drained and he was panting, taking in for much needed oxygen as much as he could. The last changeling appeared to be a high rank officer among the changeling forces, as he had a set of fancy armour and he was much tougher than the rest of the changelings that Eclipse was fighting.

As the two engaged in combat, the changeling launched a beam of green magic that hit Eclipse right in the chest. Eclipse was knocked backwards and fell onto the ground, as his vision went dim and blurry. He tried to stand up, but he failed.

Bolt saw that her stallion was incapacitated, and she put a few shot straight towards the changeling, and finished him off by cutting his throat with the blades that were attached on her bow.

She immediately approached her lover once the last changeling was down, and she could see Eclipse’s eyes closed, but still with purple smoke leaking from the eyelids. She tried to drag him to safety to treat him, but since Eclipse was in Nightmare Mode, he was emitting high doses of dark magic, and it burnt her, not because of heat, but the collision between the purified magic of Bolt and the dark magic of Eclipse.

She could hear some dragons approaching with battle cry and spitting flames, so she must get Eclipse back up, but he was unconscious that time and didn’t react to Bolt’s stimuli.

“Shadestep! Shadestep, this is Bolt. Can you hear me?” She cried through the radio, seeking for help.

“I got you, Bolt. What’s going on?”

“Eclipse was shot by magic and he is down! I need help getting him back up!”

“Alright then, hang on. I’ll be right there.”

She couldn’t just leave Eclipse lying out in the open as those dragons come close, so she must drag him back behind cover. She tried to touch his body again, but it burnt her, and it was very a very tactile and painful sensation.

Despite of the pain, she was determined to rescue Eclipse. She bear the pain as she grabbed his body and dragged it all the way back behind cover, even if her hooves started to bleed and burn, and her tears couldn’t stop but running down her face. She felt sick, but she knew she just had to hold it in. She gritted her teeth, as she use all of the strength she had left to drag the heavy stallion behind cover. Eclipse was definitely way heavier than Granite when he had his full arsenal on his body.

She was lucky that the sickness and burning effect was only temporary, as her wounds on her hooves started to slowly heal back up after she stopped making contact with Eclipse’s body. It was painful, but wasn’t exactly harmful for her in the long run.

She knew she had to protect the two of them until Shadestep arrived and help, so she started to engage the splitter dragon forces moving towards their direction. She silently sent an arrow straight towards on of the dragons and took him down.

With a few arrows, she was able to quietly shoot down quite a few of the dragons without the entire enemy force noticing. She noticed that Eclipse’s smoke from his eyes was starting to thin out, as he slowly weakened in his state of coma. Fearing that his soul might eventually fail and turn into a pile of ash, she tried to touch her lover again. It didn’t burn as much as before, as it only felt like a small bonfire that warms you up in a winter’s night.

She tried to peek out from the cover, but one of the dragons noticed that sudden movement as she ducked back down. He slowly approached her cover with a spear in his claws, pointing at her direction.

Lightningbolt tried to draw out another arrow to counter his attack, but then the realised a problem. She reached her hoof to the quiver to draw out an arrow to fire at the dragon, but she couldn’t get any. She took off her quiver, only to find that there was no arrow left, as she had already fired all of them away towards the enemy.

She almost panicked as she desperately tried to find a weapon to defend them two. Eclipse’s sniper rifle was too heavy and bulky for her to shoot accurately. Granite’s machine gun was left outside in the open, and therefore impossible to acquire.

She looked back onto the stallion lying on the ground. There was one rifle on Eclipse’s back held on by a strap. It was Eclipse’s Mark 14 rifle, the one he used to teach Lightningbolt how to use a rifle back at the West.

She took the rifle off Eclipse, and quickly loaded a magazine full of ammo onto the rifle. She breathed in deeply as she leant against to her cover, holding onto the rifle tightly. She could hear the dragon’s footsteps getting louder and louder as he neared.

She knew that even though the rifle had a suppressor attached onto the end of the barrel, the gunfire would still be as loud as a dragon’s roar and would definitely attract attention of the other dragons in the area.

She was ready. She hopped up with a turn to face directly towards the dragon, and she pulled the trigger. A shot landed right onto the dragon’s face, and he fell. The loud bang from the shot made every dragon turned towards Lightningbolt.

She was horrified, as she looked at the dragons that slowly approached her, all with their weapons in their claws.

“Umm, Shadestep? Are you here yet?” She asked anxiously through the radio.

“I’m almost done here! Just hold on!” Shadestep replied through the radio, with a lot of background noise and gunfire. He seemed to be very busy fighting over at his side too.

Out in a sudden, she had a flash of memory running down her mind. She remembered that day when Eclipse taught her how to fire a rifle, should the need arises.

She muttered to herself repeatedly as she took aim down through the scope,

“Hold it steadily. Breathe and take aim. When you feel like you have lined up a shot, send it.”

The rifle wasn’t very heavy by itself, but when anxiety kicked in, her hooves started to shake, and she started to flinch radically after every shot. It took her a few seconds to recover after every shot, and her fear was getting stronger and stronger as the dragons came very close.

However, she knew she would do everything and anything she had to do to save Eclipse. She started to calmed down as she lined up another shot.

She pulled the trigger.

Bang.

Bullseye.

All the other dragons froze as they saw her shot hit one of the dragons right in his head, but they soon recovered and continued proceeding.

She gained some confidence from that round, and so she detached the old clip and slapped a new full magazine onto the rifle again. With her previous experience, she fired again. Another hit.

The dragon realised that the mare was dead serious about her shots, so they must end her quickly before more of their own kind dies on her hooves again. They flew up and charged towards her, with the spears pointing right at her.

She took aim again, hoping to land some hits onto the speedy flying reptiles. As she fired, the shadowy figure she was longing to see finally appeared behind the dragons, and he pursued the dragons, taking them down one by one, like a blackhole greedily engulfing every entity within its force field.

However, even with Shadestep’s distraction, one of the dragons still made it towards Lightningbolt. As she observed Shadestep’s attack from behind the cover, she felt someone punching her face and trying to grab her from behind.

She contracted her hind legs’ muscles, and bucked the attacker away. He let go of Lightningbolt as he got knocked back. He slid metre backwards as he stared at Lightningbolt with hate and rage. She tried to raise Eclipse’s rifle towards the dragon, but the rifle was too long, and the dragon smacked the rifle off to the side. He walked up towards the defenceless mare, with his sharp claws unsheathed. Lightningbolt crawled backwards and touched Eclipse’s motionless body. It doesn’t even hurt to touch anymore, just a slight warm wave of heat radiating off his body, like a normal stallion’s body would.

She desperately tried to find a weapon to defend herself, since Eclipse was unconscious and Shadestep was busy fighting out there. Her hooves were pressing against the ground, and soon up on Eclipse’s body. She pressed onto something solid, which she pulled it out with the drive of instinct. It was Granite’s revolver, still loaded with 5 usable rounds.

She pointed towards the dragon and pulled the trigger like a mad mare, firing all the five rounds in the cylinder. The knock back of the revolver was insanely strong and uncontrollable for her, but the rounds still landed onto the dragon.

He fell, and landed right next to her on the ground. She felt a sense of relief as the threat was neutralised. She peeked out again, and she saw the stallion still struggling to fight off one of the dragon, and he was losing ground. The fact that the dragon’s body size was larger than Shadestep for him to strike effective had caused issues for the stallion.

She knew she needed to take action, at once. She saw the dragon she killed had an arrow wedged into it’s scales and scratched his skin. She wiggled the arrow and pulled it out. She knew an arrow wouldn’t be enough to kill a dragon this size, but it could buy Shadestep some time. She picked her bow back up, and pulled onto the strings. With a familiar weapon, she had full confidence to make a precise hit.

However, the battlefield changes every second. A slight misestimation of the wind gust and Coriolis Effect had made her arrow hit something she wasn’t aiming at, something she would never hope the arrow to land on, Shadestep.

The arrow landed on Shadestep’s left eye, stabbing directly onto the eyeball. Shadestep fell down as he screamed in a sudden jolt of pain. He covered his injured eye with a hoof, while blood started to leak out from the side. The dragon was surprised to see his enemy being shot randomly. He looked towards Lightningbolt’s direction and spotted the mare with a bow in her hoof.

It was an awkward scene as the two made eye contact with each other. Shadestep, although being shot in one eye, still managed to see things clearly with another eye while the dragon was distracted. He raised his Sword of the Domain, and he threw it towards the back of the dragon. It was a lucky hit, but at least the dragon was finally down.

Lightningbolt hopped back out to assist Shadestep. She was scared that Shadestep might be seriously injured and turn against her due to her careless friendly fire.

“Shade? Oh, I’m terribly sorry, are you alright?”

“Just a scratch, I’ll be alright. I need to help Eclipse first!”

The two walked back towards Eclipse, and Eclipse’s smoke from the eye was no longer visible, and he had stopped breathing. He still had very slow, shallow and weak pulses however, which means he was still alive.

Shadestep placed a hoof onto Eclipse and started to do his magic. Lightningbolt witnessed a wave of dark magic being transferred from Shadestep to Eclipse. Eclipse’s eyes started to smoke again, and his eyes slowly opened.

With a few vigorous cough, he sat up and saw his brother and his mare. And with a few more moments, he was fully recovered and retrieved from the brim of demise. He stood back up again, and he deactivated his ‘Nightmare Mode’.

“Eclipse!” Lightningbolt cried, as she saw her stall being brought back to life once again. She embraced the stallion as the tears of joy flowed out from the frame of her bright blue eyes.

“No time to enjoy your reunion. Canterlot had been breached. We need to head back and unleash our final resort weapon before it’s too late!”

Eclipse nodded, and Shadestep opened a portal straight to the Castle compound of Canterlot. The three promptly hopped through, only to see that Canterlot was a mess down in the city area. All the enemies they had were charlie-foxtort-ing down there.

They retreated into the throne room, and all the allied generals were defending the castle. Malachite, Sky Lannister, Windspear, Shining Armor, Princess Cadence the two Royal Sisters, Lunar and all remaining combat effective assets of Royal Guards, Wonderbolts and the Sentinel Task Force were standing inside, holding their weapons and ready to fight.

Eclipse took a crate full of ammunition and loaded all the machine guns and sniper rifles he could handle, while Lightningbolt took a few quiver full of arrows and stood guard with the rest of the team inside. Shadestep took Eclipse’s Sword of the Burnt Secrets and dual wield the two swords he now have.

A scout ran back in and reported, “Enemies inbound!”

“Everyone get ready, this is going to get real tough!” Princess Celestia ordered, and everyone readied their weapons for a final stand against the incoming enemies.

The doors were bust opened, as different races of enemy forces swarmed in the castle. Everyone defended the castle. The ones with guns fired their weapons towards the incoming swarm, while the ones with melee weapons charged in and started to swing their weapons.

Shining Armor casted a protective ward to minimise enemy fire against the team inside. Eclipse swapped between .50 caliber rifles and machine guns to maximise his firing power.

“Damn it! They’ll just keep coming!”

“Don’t let up! Just keep fighting!”

Although with their best effort, the enemies were getting nearer and nearer towards the team. Shining Armor asked his Princess Cadence the question,

“Why can’t we just call Twily in and blast them away, or do what we did before?”

“Because they are not evil, they are just aggressive against us. Those powers wouldn’t apply this time.”

Shadestep backed up and called Eclipse and Lunar, “Brothers! Get over here! It’s time for the final weapon!”

Eclipse didn’t exactly know what his brother and the rest of the council had previously planned, but he knew he had to trust him. He had no option.

“What do we do now?” Eclipse asked, as bullets and magic beams fired around him.

“Summon the weapon.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“Ancient power of the Shadows.”

Eclipse was shocked among hearing the plan. It was one of the strongest powers ever known in Equestria history and also the most unpredictable, uncontrollable and devastating power they could possibly find.

The three stood there, forming a circle. Shadestep drew out King Sombra’s horn and placed it on the ground. He started to cast the spell.

“Ancient Lord of the Shadows and our dear father, hear my words! We now summon you and your almighty powers upon this land! Hear my call, as we call upon the names of the shadows and the dead. Hear me cry, as the holy and the evil all fall upon the power of the shadows, and our dear father takes the lead once again! For the Shadow Realm! For the Lord!”

With that, the horn bursted into flames and everyone around all fell unconscious and fell to the ground. The fighting seized, and the ancient power, buried away for millenniums were brought back to the lands, that swept all the enemies away.