Harmony: Equestria at War

by RedstoneDreamEclipse

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Griffons, Wonderbolts, Drama, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Changelings, Original Character, Royal Guard, Tragedy
Length: 40224

A civil war that would change Equestria forever. What would the ponies do to defend their homeland?

The beginning of the Second Celestial Era,
Multiple villians' rise and downfall, Equestria had survived everything that had been thrown at her.
We all know the spirit, "Friendship is Magic."
But what if there were no harmony, no friendship,
when power is the only thing that matter, it all became clear.
"Equestria does not have eternal friends, or eternal enemies. She only has eternal interests."

The other races wanted to take over Equestria,
starting a civil war between races.
How will the ponies survive the invasion, and reach for peace?

Published 2016-12-18 09:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-19 14:39:03 UTC

Prologue: The World We Knew

The defeat of King Sombra secured the safety and peace in the Crystal Empire. The citizens of the Empire never forgot the day when Spike and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza used the Crystal Heart and blew the dark tyrant into pieces and never to be seen again.

Since that day, there hadn’t been a lot of threats and crises among the magical land of Equestria. Even Lord Tirek or the second invasion of the Changelings led by Queen Chrysalis, which posed a threat on a global scale, were neutralised eventually. War after war, crisis after crisis, this place had survived whatever that was thrown at her. She had withstood the test of time.

Princess Celestia the Great, who had been in charge of ruling the land along with her sister Princess Luna for over a thousand years, had transformed the Equestrian Government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. For the first time since the Earth, Unicorn and Pegasi tribes united, the citizens can enjoy democracy and true freedom. Celestia had distributed her powers to her subjects, with her only hold some “reserved” power, only to be used in extreme emergency or constitutional crisis.

With Princess Twilight Sparkle the Wise and her friends’ effort, they had enlightened the races all through Equestria with the ideas of Love and Friendship. These powers brought peace and harmony, and had led Equestria into her Golden Age. Since then, the Government had greatly improved the national security. The Wonderbolts, formerly well-known as an acrobatic flying group that performs stuns and tricks in shows, had become an actual military unit, The Equestrian Royal Air Force (EQRAF). It was their duty for weather control, air patrol, emergency air support and service etc. Most importantly, they were also responsible for national defence.

A couple hundred specialists scattered within Equestria formed a task force in response of Princess Celestia, codename “Sentinel”. Their identity was mostly hidden, and they lived like a normal citizen with nothing special. They were only to be deployed in extreme emergency or crisis, when everything fails and falls around them. The heroes that would save the land from anarchy.

Some said, “Equestria has no eternal friends, nor eternal enemies. She only has eternal interests.” For a land where friendship and love is magic, this statement seemed like nonsense. However, when the cruelty of war started to emerge, it all became clear. When there was no more friendship or love to power the land, physical force would strike in and take over. By that time, neither the Elements of Harmony nor the Rainbow Power would work. Power always finds a place to rest its head.

Some had turned themselves to the good side from the bad. The changelings had overthrown their queen and learnt to share love with one another for greater good. With Thorax the Selfless as the new leader of the changelings, they made a propaganda with Equestria to be allies. For the first time, racism was annihilated from the land, at least for the changelings.

But who knows when will anyone strike the land again? And if they really do, only the strongest, or the smartest could have the chance of the final triumph.
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“Argh!” Spike slipped and fell from the top of the tower with the Crystal Heart. King Sombra, upon seeing his chance closing in, and quickly closed in towards the Crystal Heart with dark crystal growing underneath him. It seemed that victory was within his grasp.

Upon this intense moment, all seemed lost, but Prince Shining Armor thought otherwise. With no options left, his best bet of saving the citizens and the entire nation was his wife besides him, Princess Cadence. He picked her up, and aimed at the direction of the Crystal Heart. Princess Cadence, being held up high by her husband, trusted her husband’s decision and stretched her wings, prepared to fly.

Shining Armor faithfully tossed her wife off the castle balcony like a javelin. With all her husband’s strength and faith, she glided towards the Crystal Heart and caught both the Heart by her magic aura and Spike on her back. She promptly landed on the ground and mounted the Crystal Heart back in place. The citizens bowed down and shared their powers with the Heart, causing it to glow a bright blue and release high amount of love magic. King Sombra, upon seeing his token of triumph was lost, still tried to dash in towards the Crystal Heart for a final all-in-or-nothing attack. Right as he did so, however, he felt a jolt of great pain building up inside him, as if his body was on fire and was ripping apart.

He stared at his hooves, only to see bright blue cracks started forming around it. Before he could even understand what was happening to him, he let out one last roar before his body cracked open and exploded into pieces. The pieces disintegrated among contact with the floor, turning into a pile of black ash. His blood red, crooked horn dropped on the floor in one .

It was a significant triumph for the Crystal Empire, and for Equestria. As everyone celebrated the great victory against King Sombra’s invasion, Cadence and Twilight Sparkle went back to where King Sombra’s horn landed. It was simply too risky to just put his horn up a shelf and just leave it like that.

To safely banish the creature and expel all the dark magic on this horn away from this land, Cadence casted a expelling spell on the horn. With some black smoke and flashes, the black spirit within the horn was expelled and flowed away like dust in a breeze. The crooked remaining of the tyrant turned from a blood red colour to a dim, pale red. Both of the mares felt a great relief, as a major threat against national security had been neutralised, and so they thought.

However, no one had realised that casting the expelling spell on the horn was a mistake. The black spirit formed three separate individuals. The first stallion was alicorn-like, has black fur with neon blue stipe. He was named “Shadestep”. The second stallion was supposed to also be an alicorn just like his brother Shadestep, but his horn was missing. This defected white stallion was named “Eclipse”. After the two stallions’ formation, the remaining spirit isn’t enough to form a whole body, so it took host to a changeling, named “Lunar”.

The three brothers of the darkness were scattered around the lands. Shadestep landed on an undiscovered land far away from Equestria, which he built the “Shadow Realm” on. Lunar stayed in the hives with Queen Chrysalis and his fellow changeling brothers without noticing much change in his life, until he found himself on his path of exile after an argument with the Queen. Eclipse however, due to his body’s defections and limitations of his power, landed within the boundaries of Equestria. His inner dark voice had driven his nature of destruction, and he went rogue very soon. Little did anyone know, the birth of the three brothers would change the lands of Equestria and her history forever.

Chapter 1 - It All Begins

Second Celestial Era, March of Year 10

Eclipse continued to spread his destruction along his path, annihilating anything he had within his vision. At first, he was at the outskirts of major cities, which didn’t affect to lands too much. However, as he reached a major city – Ponyville, things started to get serious. His rogue actions drew the attention of the 2 Royal Sisters at Canterlot, as an emergency. A quick response force was sent to take him down before he does any actual harm at any of the citizens there. The QRF was losing at first, a few of the members were injured by Eclipse’s dark magic. The team, however, had quickly adapted to Eclipse’s attacking patterns and his defection in fighting. With a few rolls and dodges, the team had successfully subdued the rogue stallion and knocked him out.

By the time his consciousness was restored, he was in an unfamiliar place. Everything around him looked so fancy and valuable. Crystals, malachites, gemstones and marbles decorated the large room. His power was still weak after his awakening, so he can’t do any damage to anything. He realised that his bondage was gone and he could move his body freely.

“You’re awake. That’s good. Tell me, why and how did you reach this land with such destructive powers?” A female voice started from a short distance ahead of Eclipse. As he looked forward, two majestic figures were sitting there on their jewelled thrones. The taller one with white coat asked him the question.

“What is this place…? Why am I here?” Eclipse however, had no awareness to his surrounding at all. The dark calling was the only thing making him destroy.

“You know, you had caused quite some trouble for our quick response force members. They said you weren’t easy to deal with. And with powers like this, I reckon you’d like to have a way to use it, in the correct way, of course. We Equestrians could really use a stallion like you in our nation defence.” Her horned glowed with a golden yellow aura. Eclipse felt dizzy and week as he sensed a bright yellow beam collided with his forehead. It was a purge spell, to drive away the dark calling within Eclipse, and locked away his previous memories.

“Now you’re good to go. I would very sincerely invite you into our national defence units. You looked like a good flyer, so I’d recommend you to go and give it a try. The main base of Wonderbolts are in Cloudsdale, a floating cloud island for pegasi.” She informed Eclipse. “Now go. I hope to see you as one prestigious and tough stallion in the team one day.”

Eclipse stepped out of the castle dour as he followed a guard to the gate. He sat down on a bench near a park outside the castle and stared at the sky. He was trying to make his mind clear to consider her offer. After the purging spell, he had lost all the memory of him destructing the lands. He was quite literally starting a new life.

“Well then. I guess I didn’t have a choice anyway.” He sighed as he stood back up. He stretched his wings and flew towards the direction he was instructed to head towards. As he flew high in the sky, he looked around at the beautiful scenery of the Equestria lands. It’s wide, peaceful and Majestic. Everything seemed to be acting with one another harmonically. No chaos, no disturbance, just calm and peace.

It wasn’t a long flight from Canterlot to Cloudsdale as the two locations are rather close to each other at that time, thanks to the movement of the floating city. Eclipse landed on the cloud-made floor of the city. Around him are the whiteness of fluffy and clean clouds, and the vivid and lively flow of rainbows making their way down like a waterfall.

It was clear for where he should go – the Wonderbolts Headquarters. It didn’t take him look to find his destination. A walled facility with flags of the Wonderbolts symbol hanging all around the facility. He didn’t quite know where he should continue going next, so he stumbled his way to a checkpoint.

The guards on duty stopped him from going in. “Halt. You’re trespassing here. You better clear out.”

“Uhh, I was wondering where should I head for joining the military, as Princess Celestia had sent me to.”

“Oh! you’re that nominee that Her Highness mentioned to our Captain earlier this day. Please forgive my rudeness. Please, follow me. I will lead you to our Captain. He is expecting you.” The guard apologised after knowing who the trespasser was. He led Eclipse straight into the Headquarters to an office inside the main building. The guard knocked on the office door for Eclipse.

“Come in. This better be important.” A deep male voice responded.

The guard opened the door and signalled Eclipse to step in. Eclipse did as the guard instructed and the guard shut the door behind Eclipse. Inside the room was one grey-coat stallion with a Captain cap on. That stallion looked like a veteran for sure, as he had 4 shiny badges hanging on his coat in front of his chest. He looked not young for sure, as apparently, the marks of war and justice had scarred his face.

He was scribbling something on some sort of documents at that moment. Eclipse stood there without moving a muscle, or moving his mouth. He just looked at the stallion in front of him, waiting for a response.

The stallion lowered his pen and raised his head to look at Eclipse with his old, velvet eyes.

“So you are Her Highness’ new protégé huh? Didn’t seem like much to me. Tell me kid, what’s your name?”

“Uhh, name’s Eclipse… sir.” He replied to the stallion. He didn’t really know how to react to his questions.

“Now listen closely. My name is Captain A. Windspear, the one stallion that is in charge of all of Wonderbolts. You may be nominated by the royalty, but I am not going soft on you. Understand rookie?”

“Yes, sir. I will do my best.”

Second Celestial Era, July of Year 13

2 years had passed since Eclipse first joined the Wonderbolts, and Eclipse had proven himself to be a fast learner and a true soldier. Victory after victory, his team had won numerous battles against rebellions and threats all around Equestria. He had proven himself to be loyal and reliable under command of Captain Windspear. He was promoted to lieutenant between that time, as a symbol of his ability and service. As he had earned Windspear’s trust and respect, Windspear treated Eclipse more like a friend now.

Little did anyone knew, Eclipse’s big brother over in Shadow Realm, had already located Eclipse, and was about to deliver his plans to retrieve his brother back to the realm.

It was one typical day in Equestria as Eclipse patrolled around the base with his best buddy Sky Striker. Everything looked fine, and Eclipse was enjoying his duties of walking around and chatting with his pal. Not until the sirens went off, at least.

Eclipse and Striker headed back into the Headquarters upon hearing the sirens. Captain Windspear, who had been a good friend with Eclipse after the years, pulled Eclipse over and prepared for the mission. Sky Striker rendezvoused with the rest of Alpha Team, awaiting for further instructions from the Captain.

“Alright there Lieutenant Eclipse, now listen up. Base Frostbite at the Crystal Mountains had been ambushed by unknown force. They’re losing ground and we are sent to assist them. You will be the Second-in-charge of this operation and lead the Alpha Team with me. Now get to it!”

“Roger that!” He headed into the armoury to get his equipment at once. Within a minute, he rushed back out with his battle attire and a fully loaded assault rifle and returned to Windspear, waiting for his next order.

“Flying will not be fast enough, so the plan here is to flying in with the pave low and drop off from the air! Take out any hostile in sight, and destroy the armoury there if we couldn’t fight them back. We can’t afford to let those weapons land onto enemy hooves.” Windspear continued to explain his plans as he hopped onto a Pave Low helicopter. After the Alpha team that he was leading all went aboard, they departed from Cloudsdale towards their objective.

Around 10 minutes on their flight, they could already see the Crystal Empire from afar. The crystal castle shined a bright white aura as they flew past it, with a bright light blue dome of protective aura covering the entire Empire. They were supposed to jump off the chopper and land in the base after around 5 minutes as they approach Base Frostbite in the mountain range, but the enemies had thought one step ahead. 3 figures flashed by the chopper and flew away. No one saw what happened properly, but it was something bad for sure. Within seconds the chopper’s rotor wings failed with black smoke coming out from it and the aircraft started to shake vigorously. The craft went unstable within seconds and they were forced to jump off.

“Mayday mayday, this is Winglet 2-2, we’re going down!”

Windspear led the team as well as the pilots to jump off the aircraft, and was the last to jump off. The chopper was engulfed by flames within seconds, just as Windspear cleared out. They all unfolded their wings and quickly regroup in the air. Eclipse reached out a limb to pull Windspear over towards the team.

“Alright gents, change of plans. We will land dead centre in the base. Provide supporting fire for our colts down there, and clear out the site. Let’s move!” Windspear gave the team one last briefing as they fell through the sky.

They readied their weapons. Eclipse felt the adrenaline building up inside him as his heart beat faster and he started to sweat, even though it was ice cold up the mountains. There was a snowstorm brewing up, as they all felt the wind became stronger and stronger. They all tried their best to stay together in the wind, but eventually the wind out-powered them, and flung them off one by one. The remaining ones started to lose control of their direction as they rolled and spun helplessly in the air. Windspear grabbed onto Eclipse the moment before both of them landed hard on the ground. The snow had helped muffled their fall, and both of them survived.

Eclipse stood up and shook himself awake right after the impact as he heard gunfire all over the place. He was alright and didn’t got hurt from the fall. Windspear, however, found himself incapacitated as he was unable to get on his legs, which also hurt a lot at the same time. Eclipse reached Windspear, only to see Windspear’s hind legs slightly distorted. It seemed like that Windspear had crashed onto the ground too hard that he broke his legs.

“I’m sorry mate, but I guess you’ll have to carry me. Set me down somewhere that I can land a clear shot.” Windspear said, as he gritted his teeth in pain. He grabbed his Mark 14 rifle that got flung off a meter away from him.

Eclipse dragged Windspear behind a pile of crates and tried to contact the rest of the team.

“Alpha Team, this is Alpha 0-2. Does anyone copy?” He waited for a response, but he heard nothing but silence. Not even a slight static could be heard. He tried again, but the results were the same, utter eeriness.

“Ahh this is not happening…” Eclipse mumbled to himself. He realised that with no one around to help him and Windspear, he would need to complete the mission on his own. May their highnesses bless his team.

“The storm is too strong lad. I don’t think much signal can be transmitted through this blizzard. Sigh, let’s just hope they’re alright.” Windspear suggested, as he peeped around the corner of the crates with his Mark 14 Enhance Battle Rifle, looking for enemies.

Eclipse activated his magic field sensor on his well modified ACR. The amount of dark magic individuals was surprisingly high. He took a deep breath, thinking what his next move would be. One impulsive move, and he would perish. He knew he would have to do this on his own, but he never had a choice.

Taking advantage of his cover, those standing within his vision dropped dead before they even knew what happened. Windspear pointed at a warehouse, signalling Eclipse to destroy it. If they couldn’t make use of the weapons to expel their intruders, neither could the enemies.

With a skilful roll, he neared the warehouse. A few bodies lied on the ground with puddles of blood beneath them. Those bodies were the members of Alpha Team, all of them. Their navy-blue coats were covered in red, along with lots of bullet holes and fatal slashes on their skin. One of the faces caught his attention, which he took a look. He was shocked, it was Sky Striker, lying on the ground, soaked in blood, dead. There was a bullet hole He took their dog tags and continued to proceed. There wasn’t anything he could do for them now. Their death, however, gave Eclipse a hint of the danger ahead.

The door was still locked and intact. It seemed like the team had failed to even bust through the door. Eclipse tried to scan through the walls for any enemies, or any allies alive, but his sensor went glitchy and finally unresponsive. Without any support or other aids, he was at high risk of being surprise attacked or outnumbered.

Without any door breaching tools, it was impossible for him to breach through the door by simply bashing on it. He looked around for anything useful and searched his teammates’ bodies. With a quick search, he found his tool of busting into the warehouse – a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, owned by Sky Striker. A few shells should be enough to break the warehouse door hinge.

The hinges were broken and Eclipse bucked the door opened. Before anyone inside could react, he sent fatal shots right through their brains and neutralised any resistance inside. There wasn’t much left in the main room of the warehouse, apparently, it had already been raided before he came in. The remaining was either on fire or broken. Gladly those were just food and some living essentials, rather than some high-end weaponries.

“How? If the door wasn’t opened for all this time, then how did they get in here? Can they teleport or something?” Eclipse was dead confused, but he quickly shook himself awake again and continued the mission. He headed downstairs into the armoury cautiously. The armoury was sealed with magical barriers and should therefore be impenetrable. Inside the armoury were dozens of armoured vehicles and missiles, which are only accessible by technicians and government authorities. Those equipment was very expensive, but all must be destroyed.

He searched around and opened the door with a key card and retina of a dead technician. His body was still warm, indicating the enemies haven’t been in here for long, and he still had a chance to destroy the valuable resources before they landed into the enemies’ hooves. He placed a strap of thermite onto a ballistic missile and activated the charge. He ran outside as fast as he could and returned to Captain Windspear. He pulled Windspear up on his back and carried him away from the blast radius.

As they moved away from their original position, more enemy infantry closed in towards them quickly. Eclipse had no choice but to drop Windspear down from his back and deal with the incoming forces.

Enemy troops fell one by one, giving him some breathing room to take Windspear to safety. Eclipse didn’t sense one thing however, was that one sniper standing on a watchtower, had lined up a clear shot at Eclipse. Eclipse was oblivious about it, but Windspear saw the strobe of light from the sniper’s rifle scope. Windspear knew countering him with his rifle would be too slow, so he grabbed Eclipse’s thermite detonator from his belt.

He held down the trigger, triggering an instant explosion from the warehouse. The warehouse burst into flames in the blink of an eye along with a massive shockwave that took the watchtower, the sniper and anyone unfortunately within the explosion radius with it. The sniper however, still managed to fire a shot at his target. The bullet didn’t reach Eclipse’s heads, but it still hit his right wing. The bullet was an explosive incendiary round, which caused a mini-explosion, following a small burn on his wing. His wing almost broke off in one whole piece. Eclipse yelled in pain as he felt his wing got hit. He dropped down onto ground growling in pain. The feathers on his wings caught on flames, and he rolled on the floor desperately trying to extinguish the fire and stop the burning.

“Alpha team, this is command. Do you copy, over.” The radio transmitted a blurry and unclear message with heavy statics. Eclipse, still drowned in pain of his wing injury, was unable to reply.

Windspear grabbed his transmitter and replied for reinforcement. “Command, this is Alpha 0-1. We are combat ineffective here! Multiple KIA and 2 wounded. Requesting immediate medivac, over!”

“Roger that Alpha 0-1, reinforcements are on the way ETA 10 mikes. Just hang tight. Command out.”

Windspear looked at Eclipse as he held on to his rifle. Eclipse was lying down screaming in pain. With Eclipse no longer able to fight, he must defend them both until reinforcements arrive.

There was nothing to be heard for a good 5 minutes but the flames burning in the warehouse, the blowing cold wind and Eclipse’s growling. Windspear never let his guard down for a single second. He could even hear his own breath and feel his heart pounding. Although he felt pain in his legs, it wasn’t intolerable, at least for him.

However, just as he thought things had calm down, he heard speaking voices and hoof steps becoming louder and louder as they neared them.
Windspear held tight on his gun as he nervously tried to see who were coming at them. The storm had slowly calmed down that he can see more details than just silhouette of things. A black figure walked towards the two stallions along with a couple of other enemy soldiers. And the next thing he knew was that, his vision went dimmer and dimmer and finally totally unconscious.

Eclipse experienced something similar to his Captain, but he slowly restored his mind. He looked around with blurry vision. It didn’t look like anywhere familiar for him. It looked like a luxurious palace with gold and crystals, and was far warmer than the field. The ground wasn’t freezing cold cement, but warm and soft carpets. Eclipse’s vision slowly became clear once again, making it easier for him to look around. He tried to bear the pain on his back and stand up, but he can barely do so. The black figure slowly approached him with a blade in his hoof. Eclipse felt defenseless without his gun, and started to breath heavily and rapidly. His heart beat so hard as if it could jump out of his chest at any second.

The figure stopped within arm’s reach in front of Eclipse. The figure slowly faded in with neon blue and turned from a blur of pale black smoke to a stallion. With a deep voice, he started,

“ Remember your brother?”

Eclipse had no idea what was happening, how did he ended up in this place, or who this stallion was. His mind was practically a blank, dead confused.

“What…”

The stallion smirked.

“Oh look at you, brother. Serving the lights for too long and you have forgot who you are already, have you? Doesn’t matter though, I can remind you about something…”

With that, his horn glowed a neon blue aura and Eclipse felt like something hitting his head. A sudden flush of images and memories filled his mind of his previous destruction and his birth, something Celestia was trying to hide from him forever with the purge spell.

Eclipse was stunned and horrified about the images he saw within his mind. This was him? A savage beast that was born for nothing but cause utter destruction? His body was frozen in place as he witnessed the long-lost memories.

The figure felt like that was enough to recall his memory, so he stopped. His horn’s aura faded away, and Eclipse was drawn back to the real-world vision from his mind.

“Who are you…” Eclipse shivered a little as he asked the stallion.

“Me? I’m your brother Shadestep, silly. Or else why do you think I would target you to replay your memories?” The stallion replied.

“What do you want from me? I would never be a savage, uncivilised beast that annihilate anything in sight. And I am sure as hell I won’t submit to my enemies!” With a portrait tone, Eclipse declared.

“No no no, my brother. I am not a savage beast like you mentioned. I’m here to find you, lead you, guide you. You will be restored as a Prince of the Shadows. I used to be one of those beasts you say, but I realised who I am, what my duties would be. Eclipse, my brother, let us be allies.”

“And why should I believe you on this? Just because you can mess with my memories with your fancy little magic doesn’t make your point valid.” Eclipse was a calm and logical stallion, and would not easily fall for daft hoax or anything like that.

“How about this?” Shadestep chuckled. His hooves were covered in purple and lime green beams of light that shot towards Eclipse. Eclipse felt a sudden powerfulness building up inside him, making him feel much stronger and tougher than he had ever been.

“Now try a few spells, I assume?” Shadestep guided Eclipse as he activated Eclipse’s true inner power that was once held captive by the purge spell. It was a step of taming a wild beast to make good use with his power. Eclipse tried some deflecting spells and realised how much power he had.

“Now, welcome back to the family, Your Royal Highness. Bring this message of alliance back to your lands and let us see both realm grow, hmm? Now go get that wing fixed up.” Shadestep spoke to Eclipse before he vanished in front of Eclipse with a boop on his nose.

He was quite confused by everything that happened. He turned around, only to see a purple-framed portal leading straight back to the mountains appearing right in front of his very eyes. He could even feel the chilling winds blowing towards him through the portal. Windspear was still lying in front of the portal motionlessly. Eclipse, now feeling stronger, pulled on Windspear’s blood-stained uniform and landed him on his own back. He trotted back to the mountains, before the portal shut off behind them. At this time the reinforcements had arrive on scene and all “enemy” forces had driven out of the base.

Two privates approached Eclipse and Windspear in a hurry.

“Sorry we are late, Lieutenant. We’ll take care of this place for now. Now get on the chopper, we’ve got medics here.” A private spoke as he helped Eclipse get Windspear onto a chopper. Eclipse remained silent for this entire time as they boarded the chopper and took off from the mountains.

The chopper took off as the medic bandaged up Eclipse’s wounded wing. Eclipse stared out the open door of the chopper at the raided base. Even after flying a good distance from the base, a big patch of red – mixed with blood and flames – could be seen from his position.

Current War Casualties: Allied Force - 200
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17th July, Year 13 of 2nd C.E. Snow Storm

Dear Diary,

So much had happened today. It seemed like the Royal Sisters had tried to seal something away from me, as that Shadestep said. If I really am a Shadow Realm Royalty, why now? And how is that even possible?

Windspear is still in a coma. Maybe because of blood lost, maybe the dark magic. I haven’t asked the medics. My wing however, is pretty much done for. With this kind of injury, it’s pretty much impossible to heal. That medic told me it’s gonna be amputated at some point, which I guess that would mean the end of my service.

Sky Striker, one loyal teammate and a good friend of mine, died on the field. He was supposed to be promoted to Master Sergeant next month, but looks like he won’t have the chance anymore. That shotgun I picked up used to breach the door, was actually his. I can’t believe how cruel his death would be. The gun was stained with his blood, his body dotted with bullet holes and covered in deep slashes.

I can’t bear the pain to even handle his belongings. His dog tags, his coat, or his rifle. After that explosion from the warehouse, their bodies were literally burnt to a crisp. I can’t even bear to look at his severely burnt body, I could hardly recognise him. He is now buried in the Hall of the Dead, with the rest of the team members, that fought with him to the dead.

Yet something is telling me, this is only the beginning…

Chapter 2 - Suspicion.

Chapter 2 - Suspicion.

The remaining team members returned to Cloudsdale. Eclipse was greatly traumatised after this mission, as the entire Alpha team except him and Windspear. Windspear was sent to the military hospital for emergency first aid. Eclipse’s wing was amputated on the chopper before they landed. With some basic and proper treatment, he was free to leave and didn’t require staying in hospital for observation.

He set down his equipment inside the barracks, which was empty without his teammate and Windspear. For the first time, he returned to his quarters alone, hearing nothing but total silence inside the building. Before this mission, every time they returned from their missions, they would chat and joke about the day. Now, with the entire team killed in action, he could feel the loneliness and pain building up inside him.

He sat down on his bed and sighed. He took out the dog tags he had scavenged from his teammates and set them down on the end table next to his bed. A small pool of red was formed on the table from the dripping of blood.

The sun was setting outside as he took a glimpse over at the window. He decided to get up and step outside to look at the remaining lights from
the sunset and twilight. He felt a sense of hate and fear against that Shadestep that claims to be his brother. A sudden burst of rage burst within the wounded colt. Purple smoke started flowing out from his eyes and his sclera turned from white to a pale green. A pulse of power shot through his body. His hoof was surrounded by a deep velvet aura and he stomped on the ground hard as he screamed from the top of his lungs. The stomp cause a shockwave that exploded towards all direction, carving a dent in the floor.

He panted as the power drained his energy and oxygen. His rage was spent and his intellectual mind returned. His eyes stopped glowing and smoking as the rage faded away. Although having a sense of hate towards Shadestep, he still decided to report to Princess Celestia about the ambush, and the alliance.

Before he left, however, he felt like he had to do one thing. He trotted towards the military hospital and into a ward. There lied a wounded stallion on the bed. The stallion struggled to get up as he saw his visitor. Eclipse sat down on a couch next to the bed.

“Windspear… You’re finally awake. You’re still holding yourself off old man?”

Windspear smiled as he placed a hoof on Eclipse’s shoulder.

“Of course I’m alright. I’m still too young to die, if by young you mean a stallion in service for 40 plus years. If I’m that easy to kill, I wouldn’t be the Captain of the Wonderbolts, right?”

Eclipse chuckled. “Still the old man I know and respect. Well, I guess I ain’t gonna be under your command like before ever again, given that well, my wing is gone. Maybe I’ll continue my service as a marine or a Royal Guard, maybe I’ll retire, who knows.”

“You know, Lieutenant Eclipse, I’ve always wanted a son. Since you joined the Wonderbolts, I really treated you as my son. You have the potential, and more importantly, far more time than I do. I can’t bear to see your talents come to waste after all the missions we have gone through. My legs are really messed up after this mission, and I won’t be able to command on the field anymore. “

A shed of tear slid down Eclipse’s face as Windspear spoke. He never thought that his mentor and commander would treat him as if he were his very own son. Windspear wiped the droplet off his face with his hoof.

“Now son, some pegasi in the Wonderbolts are currently developing an artificial bionic wing prototype for disabled pegasus and other races to fly. This is supposed to be top secret for the entire army, but I trust you. Honestly, my body could barely keep up with these missions now. I was supposed to retire within a couple of years, but I don’t need to worry about my retirement anymore. Look, son. I’ve nominated you to be the next Head-Commander of the Wonderbolts. Seldom could prove themselves to be a loyal, diligent, nimble and thoughtful soldier like you for me to nominate.”

“Inside the end table here and there you see, contains my rifle, my beret and the authority documents for the prototype wing. From now on, you’re the Captain, the stallion in charge of the entire force. Make good use of them. I’m sure with your lead, everyone would return with triumph. Now, I’m tired. Give your old man a little while to rest, would you?” Windspear spoke, with the warmest tone. He closed his eyes and very quickly drifted to sleep.

Eclipse got up from his seat and pulled the drawers of the end tables open. Inside the drawers lied Windspear’s Mark 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, his beret hat and some paper work. The rifle seemed to have a nice white paint job on it, along with some pink and green stripes, but it was quite well worn and looked a little rusty after the numerous battles Windspear had in service. He took all three items and left the ward.

He went into the closed area in the Wonderbolts Headquarters using the documents and his new title as the Head-Commander of Wonderbolts. Inside a laboratory, he saw the shiny, new prototype wing mounted on a stand inside a glass box.

“You’re just in time, sir. The wing had just finished its final testing and is ready for use. We only made one currently, so you’d be ideal to try it out. This wing is now yours, sir.” The technicians told Eclipse as they lifted the glass box and unmount the wing from the stand.

“Now, this bionic wing is made to be embedded to one’s body, which means you’ll need to receive a small surgery to substitute the base of your remaining wing bone with a mount. After that, you can mount and dismount your wing freely. It is able to deflect typical assault rifle rounds, so you can use it as a make shift bullet shield in dire emergency. Now, please lie down, and when you wake up again, you’ll have a brand-new wing.”

Eclipse lied down and felt like as if he was drifting to sleep as he felt the anaesthesia syringe slowly injected the drug into his blood vessels. By the time he woke up once again, he felt something new and hard underneath his back. He tried to get up, only to feel something heavy on his right side.

“Woah, this thing is awesome, but well, quite heavy too…” Eclipse complimented as he inspected his brand new asset, flapping and stretching it.

“Don’t worry. It’s actually very light weight with the alloy we used. You’ll just need some time to get used to it.” The technician replied.

Eclipse thanked the technicians for their hard work and left the facility. He still has a message to deliver. He took off along with the sprint and hop that he used to do, but he tilted and crashed back onto the ground. After a few more tries, he was starting to get used to the weight and bulkiness of the wing. As a fast learner, it didn’t take him long to fly once again.

Although not being the smoothest flight, he made it to Canterlot. The landing was quite rough, as he slipped and rolled on the floor at a sharp angle. He quickly got back up and entered the castle. Right as he entered the throne room, where the 2 Princesses would most likely be, he was greeted with great respect by the guards.

“Welcome back sir. Congratulations for your new position.”

“Got a new piece of chest candy now, eh? Congratulations on Head-Comm, sir.”

Eclipse, being the only one knowing the painful truth of his “promotion”, kept silent among their compliments. He approached the princesses slowly and nervously.

“Your Highness… I have reports of the ambush in Base Frostbite.”

“Go on then, Captain. I’m listening.” Celestia responded, awaiting what Eclipse had to say.

“The Alpha team, except Windspear and me, are all killed in action during the mission. The prototype weapons in the base were destroyed before landing in enemies’ hooves. And I had made contact with the leader of the enemy.” Eclipse reported in a format tone.

“Wait, you mentioned the enemy leader.”

“Yes, Your Highness. He is apparently a dark magic user, a really powerful one. And he claimed to be my brother and had proven it. He released me to return and talk about an alliance. I’m not sure whether I can trust this stallion or not, so I just report everything I know.”

“Hmm… Alright then, Captain. You’ve done us a great service and you deserve some reward. We’ll talk about the alliance with the Shadow Realm later. I think you can return to your team for the moment and prepare for your new role in the unit.” Celestia replied.

“Roger that, Your Highness.” Eclipse followed her command and left the throne room. With a leap, he set his way back to the Headquarters.

Upon his departure, Celestia gathered a few pegasus Royal Guards soldiers and some Wonderbolts cadet in Canterlot.

“Listen up. Eclipse had made contact with enemy forces and now has full control of dark magic. I need you all to arrest and assassinate him. He is now too dangerous to keep around. Now go, before anyone could find out what is happening.” Celestia commanded. Her greatest fear of Eclipse’s power reawakening had unfortunately come true.

The soldiers, being the loyal and patriotic individuals that they were, followed her command without questioning. They quickly readied up and proceeded towards the Wonderbolts Headquarters to carry out their assassination.

Eclipse, on the other side, had no idea about what Princess Celestia had in mind. He trotted into where used to be Windspear’s office. Everything looked the same just like the day he first entered. He sat down on his seat, staring at the crystal table and the documents on it.

He was just sitting there silently, thinking of what his next step would be. Out of his expectation, his door was opened with a bang. 3 Royal Guards and 3 Wonderbolts Cadets entered his room. They all wielded sub-machine guns. One soldier neared Eclipse with a commanding voice.

“Captain Eclipse, you are under arrest for treason.”

“What the… What’s happening? What’s with the rifles?” Eclipse was surprised and confused about what was happening.

“Sorry sir, but command is command.”

Just as the soldiers aimed down their sights at Eclipse, he clumsily went prone just as the soldiers fired their weapons. He rolled forward and skilfully leaped over the opened window and jumped out. He immediately took off and flew to wherever he felt like it was safe for him.
The soldiers tried to follow and pursue him, and they were right on his tail. Eclipse had no idea of what’s happening, but he knew he had to get rid of them at once. He pulled out his pistol from the holster strapped on his leg, and returned fire. He purposely aimed higher than his target, as he didn’t want to injure any soldier before he understands what was going on. The soldiers, however, didn’t seem to fear Eclipse’s counter attack and continued chasing behind him.

After quite some time, Eclipse’s long lasting stamina and his never tiring bionic wing gained him an advantage as he out powered and outlasted the soldiers. The soldiers abandoned their pursuit due to fatigue, and so they retreated. He turned around to see no one was behind him. He felt a sense of relief as he landed on a mountain top, just beside a cave.

“What was that? It could be a reaction training, but they all seemed aggressive at me. Not the kind of aggression that was from their seriousness from their practice, but they all seemed like they genuinely tried to kill me… What in Equestria is actually going on?” Eclipse muttered to himself, dead confused.

“I guess I shouldn’t return there for now, in case they were really intentionally trying to murder me…”

“I’m glad you know.” A familiar voice spoke behind him, it sounded like it was coming from the cave.

“Is someone there?” He reloaded his pistol and raised his awareness.

A black figure drifted out from the cave along with a weird-looking half-stallion half-bug creature walking out. The black figure was obviously Shadestep, just as Eclipse would have expected.

“Aye, my brother. Did the alliance go well?” Shadestep asked as he sat down on the grass.

Eclipse realised what was going on, and why were the soldiers so eager to hunt him down. With a sarcastic tone, he replied, “Oh yeah, of course it went well. Everything was completely damn alright. Expect that I almost got shot on my way here.”

“I’ve already heard about it. Celestia sent soldiers to hunt you down. Just as I expected, that stubborn mare just thinks her words are damn
supreme. You’ll need to get away from here, as quick as possible.” The bug-like creature said.

“Oh, and who are you? Why would you help me?” Eclipse asked.

“I’m Lunar, your little brother. I’m a changeling as you can see, so I look very different comparing to you or Shade. I can disguise as whatever, or whoever I want as long as I know how it looks like. I kept myself in disguise while I heard of the news.”

“And why do you think I should believe you, given that you can disguise as anything? How can I tell you’re not a spy from them?” Eclipse held tight of his pistol, pointing at Lunar.

“Calm down, my brother. I understand your doubts and we’re genuinely trying to reunite and help one another. If I were to kill you, you’d be dead on the mountains that day. If he’s a spy, you’d be dead by now, right? Just listen to us, and get out of here right now. Go west to the undiscovered side of Equestria and you should be fine there. We’ll take care of the rest. Just stay alive.” Shadestep pressed a hoof onto Eclipse’s pistol, pushing it down and stopped Eclipse from firing.

“Right… I guess I don’t have a choice anyways.” Eclipse put his pistol back in his holster.

“I’ll disguise as you to draw their attention, and that should buy you some time to get away from here.” Lunar suggested.

“And I’ll try to incriminate something to blackmail those bastards. This should get you off the wanted list.” Shadestep continued.

“Let’s not waste any time, my brother. Now take this and go.” Lunar passed over Windspear’s rifle to Eclipse. Apparently, he stole it from his office as the guards weren’t looking.

Eclipse took the rifle and loaded it up. He nodded to his brothers and took off, heading west. Lunar transformed into Eclipse and went off towards somewhere random. Shadestep returned to his Realm and prepared his part.

“Thank you, my brothers.”

He flew, alone and helplessly, towards the west side of the nation. He flew through the night to get as far as possible. The trip was very long, even flying would take him two entire days. For the first night, he just camped by the river. By the time of sunset of the second day, he had already reached somewhere he had never been, a far away land of almost nothingness but a small town.

He decided to stay in an inn for the upcoming days, at least until his brothers settled the issue back at Canterlot. Although being a small, forgotten town, it was still technologically advanced enough to have cars and networks and electronics in general.

It seemed like there were nothing like bounties on him yet, which he was thankful. As he enjoyed a little alone time at the bar table in the inn, he saw a mare, white coat, pink mane, purple clothing and a pair of big, bright, sea blue eyes inside the inn. She sat down at the bar table, right next to Eclipse. Eclipse’s heart pounded faster and harder upon seeing her approaching. The mare wasn’t like the most pretty among the lands, but was surely good looking.

Eclipse felt his cheeks went a little red and a bit hot as he blushed upon looking at the mare. That mare turned as she grabbed her drink. She stopped as she saw Eclipse looking at her, cheeks red. She smiled at him, and walked away.

Eclipse froze in place as he felt his inside blooming with a weird sense. He never felt this way before. Sure he had a shed of friendship and loyalty with his teammates. In just a day, he experienced the pain of all teammates becoming goners, the patriot and responsibility of being the head of the team, the anxiety of reporting such information to the authorities, the hate of being betrayed by the ones he trusted, and the fortune of escape death twice.

He had feelings for her. True, it is completely normal for a stallion to decide to love someone or not based on their appearance. Eclipse may be a rational colt, but after all these he had experienced, his aggrieved mind did hope for some remedy.

19th July, Year 13 of 2nd C.E. Sunny

Dear Diary,

I’ve arrived at this small town that I don’t even know what it is on the map. There aren’t much for me to do right now, but to wait for Shadestep and Lunar to return with good news. Without my uniform and arsenals, I should be low profile enough to hide from them, unless someone knows how I look and who I am here.

Shadestep, such an accursed bastard. He let me talk to Celestia about the alliance, after all he had done. Reporting that to Her Highness was pretty much die another way. They better not be using me just to invade this land.

I wonder what Windspear would think. I wonder what my teammates would think. They would probably think the same just as Celestia did. But if I’m really that important, that they would ambush a base and kill dozens just to lure me into a “reunion”, then why wouldn’t Celestia listen to me, and decides to kill me?

Sigh. I’m really tired after all this long flight. I might as well get some sleep for now. Hopefully I will not wake up with a gun against my head, or worse, not waking up again.

Just as the Royal Guards and Wonderbolts are desperately hunting down Eclipse, they were all oblivious about the threats that were lying all around them. Multiple races surrounding Equestria had been planning to overthrow Celestia’s ruling for years. Although not exactly Celestia’s fault, the citizens of Equestria just couldn’t withstand other races among them. Most of them disgusted, discriminated, hated the other races to be among them. Only few had set hooves on the other races’ lands and understood their desire and hope of true equal opportunity and harmony. With the Shadow Realm’s “Invasion” as a starting point, they strike the land, seeking their opportunities.

Just as the searching teams stopped their pursuit for the night, Canterlot had received an emergency transmission from the east coast of Equestria. Troops located in Baltimare, Filly Delphia and Manehatten had detected unusual activity over the coast. Multiple coast guard units had been send out but none had returned.

One coast guard returned to Baltimare by swimming back all the way from a sunken tow boat. According to his words, the griffons had launched an attack towards the coast guards. There were at least 10 non-ally ships and vessels in the Eastern Celestial Sea.

Celestia assigned 3 units of Royal Guards to assist the coast guards, with Prince Shining Armor as leader. She probably just thought those in the sea were just bandits and pirates holding her subjects for ransom, and was nothing to fear at. Why fear some uncivilised barbarians when you have an entire army and air force under your control?

Yet the upcoming had proven her wrong. The southern region of the Equestrian badlands had been invaded by large numbers of the dragon race, just around a day or two later than the griffons. Multiple clans of zebras had started to rebel and attack the pony race separately. The entire Equestrian border was under attack by numerous races.

As if things weren’t bad enough already, the crooked changelings, leaded by Queen Chrysalis, once again returned to the lands of Equestria with total aggression. Along with other races like the forbidden bat ponies, a total of 30 attacks were launched against the lands of Equestria in a single day.

The Equestrian Government was shocked among hearing the news of the invasion. Celestia and Luna had to call in an emergency meeting with other Equestrian Authorities to deal with the incoming forces.

“This is no act of terrorism. They are all attacking different regions of our lands to cripple and pierce through our national defences. I have engaged a large amount of currently active soldiers and air cadets of the Royal Guards and the Wonderbolts. This should hold those griffons off for the moment being.” Celestia started.

“We have engaged all available soldiers to defend all major fortresses. Up till now there had been 3 different races trying to take over our point.” The Colonel of the Crystal Empire Army reported.

“Wish we have some allies now… That would make it so much easier.” Celestia sighed.

“We could have the Shadow Realm to assist us, if you know what you are doing.” Luna responded to her sister’s concerning suggestion.

“I trust Eclipse. He knows what he is doing.” A familiar male voice came from the door behind the meeting table. Everyone turned their heads to see the old veteran pegasus standing at the door. Windspear, with wheels and supports strapped onto his waist, and assisted by a cadet, entered the room slowly.

“Captain, what are you doing here? You should be resting on the bed.” Celestia questioned.

“Your Highness, you are wrong about Eclipse. He knows what he is doing. He’s a patriotic and loyal stallion. All he is doing is for the benefits of our nation. He had no intensions of treason at all.” Windspear objected to Celestia’s previous statement.

“He talked to our enemy that ambushed one of our bases, brutally slaughtered 200 soldiers, and ended your team members’ lives. You don’t understand what is actually going on out there, do you? He is a beast inside him. He was made out of nothing but evil dark magic, the remains of King Sombra the Tyrant! The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Captain.” Celestia declared with a serious tone.

“You Highness, we all know the saying goes, ’Forgive and Forget’. Remember Discord, or Starlight Glimmer? Even your sister, Nightmare Moon - I mean, Princess Luna? You forgave them of their sins, and you never questioned their intensions. Why can’t he be trusted like them? Now that King Sombra is long-gone, what should he be blamed on that? You let him joined my ranks as a Wonderbolt, and appointed me to be his mentor, so I shall show you all that thing aren’t what it looks like. I trusted my Lieutenant, no matter what he is made from, because no one should be judged by their backgrounds.“Windspear confidently protested Celestia.

Celestia blushed a little among hearing his speech. She sighed and said, “Perhaps you are right, Captain. He isn’t a bad stallion after all… I’ll have my team to retrieve him and negotiate with the Shadow Realm about the alliance propaganda. In these days, we cannot just trust everyone, you know. At least I know I can trust you, Captain.”

“Thank you very much for your understanding, your Highness.” Windspear thanked Celestia for her decision. He left the room with the help of the cadet. After Windspear had left, Celestia immediately sent the task force she assigned to pursuit Eclipse to search for him, and hopefully get him back to assist them.

Windspear left the castle along with his cadet to the mountain top Eclipse had once evaded his pursuit from.

“Alright, too one would notice now. We can drop our disguises.” And with a puff of green flames, ‘Windspear’ and ‘the cadet’ turned back into their original form, Shadestep and Lunar. The two took a breathe with relief, knowing that Eclipse would be safe now.

“Are you sure they trust what we said in there?” Lunar asked doubtfully.

“I’d say we fooled them well. Hope they actually find him and bring him back here, or else it’s only a matter of time until the rebels reach us, and both Equestria and Shadow Realm would be doomed.” Shadestep replied confidently. He opened up the purple-framed portal and the two returned to the Shadow Realm to prepare for the upcoming alliance and battles.

Within one week, Equestria had lost numerous guard posts and fortresses along the borders. Manehatten had fallen into enemy hooves. The griffons had taken control of the well-developed city, forcing the residents to move away. The griffons swept from street to street, the ones that agreed to give up their land were free to go, and the ones who stood their ground faced a gruesome fate.

It was shocking for a small force of griffons comparing to Equestria’s huge number of soldiers could take down a city in such a short amount of time. All the griffons had were obsolete weapons like stone swords, axes and catapults, but with their undying will of overthrowing an ungrateful nation, they could do anything. They scavenged weapons dropped by the Equestrian soldiers and used their weapons against them.

However, the invading races didn’t seem to favour one another’s movements, as such movements threatened their chance of taking over the nation. From then on they began to not only fight the Equestrians, but also other tribes that were invading the nation, triggering a total civil war against all races.

The invading forces pretty much had Equestria surrounding at every angle, except the undiscovered western boundaries of the nation. It was said to contain unknown species of monstrous creatures and the most powerful hidden warriors of the nation, so no one would want to set hoof on that place.

Within the week, the task force had blanket searched the entire west side of the lands that were known to them. Going any further than that would be an whole new region for them, with no maps, no telephone signal, no guards, nothing but rumours as reference for the unknown region.

Meanwhile, Shadestep and Lunar, being well-aware of Equestria’s current situation, also sent a team of air force unit to search for their brother. The two couldn’t participate in the search itself, as they had a bigger fish to fry. They were preparing for total war against the rebellion forces, for Equestria and Shadow Realm.

Second Celestial Era, 27th July of Year 10

Eclipse, having no idea that a civil war was about to break out, had did a rather good job of staying in the shadows to avoid being hunted down. This midnight, he stepped out of the inn to have some fresh air, as well as checking the surrounding, making sure no one had been near to even ask about his existence. He, along with his rifle, sat down underneath an apple tree, staring at the bright moon and stars. Just as he saw a few shadows soaring through the peaceful night sky, he knew something was wrong. He headed back inside the inn, packed his belongings as fast as he could and went fleeing towards the southern west. He was sure that he his position had been exposed.

“I see him! I see him! Right there! Right there!” A voice yelled. He wasn’t sure where exactly this voice came from, but he was certain that it was coming from the sky, by those flying shadows. It was undoubtedly the task force. Eclipse continued running, trying to lower his exposure to the top view by staying under the shades of the trees in the forest.

Eclipse felt himself breathing more rapidly as he ran. He knew he had come too far to die right now, so he must run for his life. The shadows on the sky kept following him behind him no matter how hard he tried to get rid of them. He could hear them yelling something at him, but he wasn’t sure what it was, given that he was under great stress just to get rid of the pursuing team.

Eventually he ran out of solid land to run, as he reached the coastline. The pursuing team turned on their search lights, shining right at Eclipse. Upon seeing the blindingly bright white spotlights, he was desperate for a fast escape route. He could choose to fly in a low altitude, but that would mean losing the advantage of the shades and obstacles on the ground to prevent the team from ambushing on him, like a hawk hunting a chick.

He scanned around the coast, almost panicking. The sea in front of him was dotted with boulders and ship wrecks, which should give him some advantage if he could travel on the water quickly and nimbly.

Upon seeing a small warehouse, he knew he hit the jackpot. He kicked the door open and got inside, and found one motorboat already floating on the water, just loosely tied to a pole on shore. He tried to fire up the boat, and luckily there were enough fuel in the fuel tank for him to sustain a long enough boat ride. He hopped onto the boat, dropped his stuff down on the back side of the boat, and chopped the rope off the boat to save time for his escape.

He leaped over the seat and got onto the controls of the boat, and in an instant his boat went gliding through the water. The motor would give away his position for sure, but he just needed it for the same tactic he used last time – wasting their energy until they give up and leave. With the amount of obstacles in the water, he must focus on driving or else he would crash, which made returning fire practically impossible.

The team, however, was determined to never retreat until they extract Eclipse this time. They knew that in order to get any ally support for the civil war, they would need Eclipse and the Shadow Realm. It was a matter of victory or defeat in the war, and the future of Equestria. Eclipse nimbly twisted and turned his boat to dodge the boulders and broken ship parts as he went gliding over the water. Although faced with lots of obstacles, he still managed to slowly but surely outrun the pursing team. The team could hear the engine of the ship roaring, and the splashes of the water caused by the boat behind it, but they flying speed just couldn’t keep up with an engined watercraft.

Just as he thought he had a great enough distance between him and them for them to catch up to him, another few shadowed figures swooped down above Eclipse, scaring Eclipse. He was vigilant, but those figures definitely surprised him.

“Damn it! I thought I’ve lost them!” Eclipse cursed out loud, although the sound of the rumbling boat engine was still way louder than his voice. He was in an extremely anxious state, almost panicking. He continued gliding his way out to the sea, hopefully losing his pursuers.
“Your Royal Highness! It’s us! Your Subjects! We’ve been finding you!” Those figures shouted. They shed their shadow cloaks, revealing their true forms as Shadow Realm ponies.

Eclipse couldn’t see exactly who those ponies were with such distance between them, but anything that was chasing him was definitely no good for him. He could see the silhouette of the pegasi, and he could hear their shouts, but he just couldn’t make out the details to determine who they were. It would be much safer for him if he just assumes those pegasi were hostile, and just focus on escaping.

“If you are telling me to surrender than you can forget it!” Eclipse yelled back. Just as he turned his head back to seeing the forward field, that was when he noticed that he was about to crash straight onto a boulder on a small island. He radically turned the steering wheel, trying to steer the boat to dodge the incoming impact, but it was too late. The boat slid sideways onto shore and crashed into the boulder, flipping the boat as well as carving a massive hole on the body, heavily damaging it. It was certain that the boat was screwed and definitely going to sink even if it was put back on water. Eclipse got flung off the seat, sent him flying a few meters up into the air, before once again hard landing onto the ground. The ground was mostly sand and dirt, so he didn’t take much damage from the crash, but it had surely incapacitated him for a good while, and filled his mouth with coarse sand.

His vision went blurry as he once again trying to rise up from the ground. The stallion violently spited out the sand that got into his mouth in his crash. As the figures landed in front of him, he knew he was done once and for all, but this stallion wouldn’t just yield and hoof victory over to them.

He backward rolled and picked up his rifle, pointing at the figures. His head, his chest and his flank still hurts from the crash, but since when had a few cuts and bruises stopped this stallion. His heart was filled with horror of death, but his wind encouraged him for the will of surviving. The figures placed their weapons on the ground slowly, raising their hooves in the air and slowly backing off, symbolising their intension – peace and truce.

Not so long later, the task force finally caught up with Eclipse, landing on the beach, panting heavily from the intense chase. The looked up at the stallion, his nose bleeding from the impact that they didn’t saw as they were too far behind.

“Sir, we’ve finally found you… Thank Celestia you are alright-“One of the cadet in the task force tried to approach Eclipse, but the horrified and raging stallion immediately pointed his gun straight at the cadet’s face. The cadet found himself unnervingly staring down the barrel of a marksman rifle in the hooves of the most elite sharp-shooter in the entire Air Force, so he did the same as those figures did, and slowly walked backwards.

“Your Royal Highness! We were trying to reach you for days! We were concerned of your well-being sir!” The figure started, “we are your subjects in Shadow Realm!”

“Sir, Captain Windspear had persuaded Her Highness to remove the bounty of you! Our nation is now under attack from multiple races, and we need you to talk about the alliance with the Shadow Realm!” The cadet exclaimed. As he did so, he looked over at the royal subjects of the Shadow Realms, standing right next to him.

“Liars! All of you are damn filthy liars! First she locked away my memory and power, then I was sent to a deadly mission, and after I reported back, she sent me back to my office and attempted to send my own soldiers to shoot me! And you, you cheeky bastard. Last time you were standing right in front of me with your gun pointing right at my face, and now you want me to help you? You deceived me! How does it feel to stare down a damn gun barrel? The very one who wanted to kill me now wants me to help her? Is she really that daft? Or does she actually think I’m brainless?” Eclipse cried, the anger towards Celestia and those who tried to kill him overwhelmed his mind, as he continued insulting and complaining about those who had deceived him.

“No sir. See, I’m very sorry for my behaviour. I was just following Her Highness’ command-“ The cadet tried to apologise while he took one step nearer towards Eclipse. Eclipse stood his ground tighter and pushed his rifle straight at his forehead. Meanwhile, he took out his pistol and pointed it at his own head.

“You dare to come near me one more step and we go down together!” Eclipse cried. The teams backed off a few steps, fearing that he might actually pull the trigger and shoot himself. Right before he done so, a shadow popped out behind him and pushed him down, disarming him.

“Brother, calm down! We all need you!” Shadestep appeared behind him, desperately pulling Eclipse down. Eclipse struggled a little, accidentally firing his pistol at the sky. A loud bang could be heard from around, scaring off crows and birds around resting on the trees to fly off.

Eclipse gritted his teeth. He really disliked the feeling of being restrained, but he eventually calmed down. Shadestep let go of him just as he felt like his brother had calmed down. Eclipse stopped his struggling, crawling and pulling. Eclipse stood back up, looking back at his brother motionlessly.

“Why? You all sent me to death, and now you want me to help? Why?” Eclipse asked Shadestep, still angry.

“Look, this is a world of chaos, brother. We all make mistakes, but if we let that mistake sink in with us and leave it inside of us forever, things wouldn’t just get better. Now is the time for us to shine my brother, with our gifted powers, we can build our nation, and defend our homeland!” Shadestep explained.

Eclipse remained silent for quite a while, before he responded. “Right… I guess that made sense. Where do we start?”

Chapter 3 - First Invasion

Author's Note

I'm sorry this took so long to come out. I was aving exam at school and so I postponed the writing. The contents wrote in different time might be a little different due to my stress level.
Still though, enjoy! And thanks for all your support!

Chapter 3 - First Invasion

On their way back to Canterlot, Eclipse, as the calm and patient colt he was, kept silent on their return flight. The Shadow Realm Soldiers and the Equestrian Soldiers, however, started chattering as if they were long lost friends. The difference in life between the two-nation’s residence was so significant, that they’ve got a lot to talk about through the overnight flight back home.

“So I guess we are allies now?”

“I wouldn’t deny it.”

One of the Shadow Realm soldier suddenly decided to say something for himself, “ Your Royal Highness, and you folks in Equestria. I wanna apologise.”

“Hmm? What’s the matter?” Eclipse asked.

“I was actually in the invading force of the mountain base a week ago. I was the one who killed those innocent soldiers.” He replied, with a regretful tone.

Eclipse breathed in deeply, held it for a bit, and slowly breathed out again.

“It’s not your fault, soldier. They’re gone now, and there is no sense in regretting anymore. You were just performing you duty. We got a common enemy now, and we should focus on them, not our pasts.” Eclipse said.

By the break of dawn, they had all landed in the Canterlot castle. Shadestep and Lunar had arrived back at the castle at the throne room. Eclipse headed in the throne room, just as everyone were expecting him.

“I’m back. Now what’s this about?” Eclipse growled towards everyone inside.

“Calm down, Captain. It was a mistake, but we don’t have much time for this yet. Multiple races are attacking our nation from all direction, and we need outer support force immediately. Your position had been restored, and you will be in charge of leading the air force.” Celestia commanded.

“Right, as long as you don’t have me killed this time… What’s the plan now?” Eclipse replied, as he stepped nearer to the conference table. On the table lied multiple documents of different attacks from various location throughout the nation. Eclipse picked up a few and started reading.

“Manehatten had already fallen. We cannot afford to lose the two remaining major eastern coast cities.” A soldier reported.

“I can lead a team to weaken the enemy infantry and try to intercept them before they reach Baltimare, but apparently, there are dragons nearby too. Both of them are aerial forces, one with extreme nationalism, one can spit fire from their mouths. I can try aerial combat with them, as long as the two race remain hostile to each other, we can head in and finish off weaken enemies.” Eclipse suggested.
“How much chance of winning do you think you have if you were to carry out the assault at Manehatten?” One questioned.

“Tiny, to be honest. The only way we can take them down before they strike Baltimare is to let them kill each other off as much as they can. If I just fly in a team, even with assault helicopters and other support units, we will have a high chance of losing it. We’d be damn lucky if we can even get out of there alive if we were to carry out the assault like this. ” Eclipse analysed, he scratched his head as he felt the anxiety of the mission.

“We’ll go in with them.” Shadestep interrupted, as he heard Eclipse’s analyzation. “I’ll assign two teams in support, each team with around 40 flyers.”

“That should help, as long as we stay defensive and hold our ground…”

“Alright then, go on with your plan, Captain. Whatever you think suits the situation. Just remember, we cannot lose the city.” Celestia commanded.

“Roger that. Alpha Team, Bravo Team, be advised, we’re moving out!” Eclipse ordered as he ran outside of the castle and met up with the rest of the team.

Upon his return to Cloudsdale, there was quite a neat surprise for him. As he landed, the soldiers saluted to celebrate his return. They didn’t have time to arrange a party because of the war going on, but if they had the time to prepare, they would surely make it happen.

“Alright then gentlecolts. Listen up. We cannot lose Baltimare. The griffons and the dragons are both proceeding towards the city, but we still have enough time to intercept them.”

“The griffons are absolutely loyal to their nation and will fight until their very last breath. Breaking their will to yield or submit is practically impossible. The dragons, although always boasting about their powers, they are not that organised, comparing to us and the griffons. They can, however, breath fire and roast anyone standing in your way in an instant. Since their clans are rather obsolete, I wouldn’t expect to encounter much enemy aircrafts, if not any. Everyone Understand?” Eclipse announced loudly, as he checked on his teams.

“Hurrah!” The soldiers responded. They hopped onto the planes and choppers efficiently and uniformly just like how they were trained to do so. Eclipse clipped himself on the outside of the chopper and held on, as he would be the first to leave the plane. Their plan was simple to understand. They would split up and interfere with the enemy movements, even if they fail, as the two races fight, they would take the benefit of weakened enemies.

This is the first mission Eclipse carried out as the Head-Commander. He was responsible for everything going on in the battlefield. Before, he was so used to be commanded, the commands of his Captain Windspear, the orders of his big brother Shadestep… Now he found out that being the one in command wasn’t the most pleasant and enjoyable job after all. Without Windspear by his side, he could feel the struggle of assigning teams and units in the mission. Windspear seemed to handle those commands and orders easily. Things are always easier watch than done, after all.

Eclipse tended to take tasks without company. Although being in a team, he would still be responsible for the one-man mission, infiltrating enemy bases, stealing intelligence… Something like that. His independence and courage often blessed him in some of the most dangerous missions the team could offer. As his mind was overloaded with many things, the tactics, what should he expect to encounter down there, the unit arrived at the east coast, seeing the major city of Manehatten looked like a mess, he knew this would be interesting, if not life-threatening.

Eclipse detached from the chopper as he released the strap on him. The other teams got in position as well, some jumped out of the chopper to provide support fire while the others quickly landed with the choppers. Eclipse stretched out his wings as he fell through the sky, giving him thrust to dash forward. He picked a building that he can provide overwatch to the team, but it’s easier said than done. Most of the buildings here are either on fire, collapsed or severely damaged. As he flew around the city, he saw more and more dead bodies, broken vehicles and damaged infrastructures. The city was pretty much a wasteland, a ruin by this state.

Eclipse promptly landed on a rooftop he saw fit with a dive and front roll. As he got into position, he scanned around the area of operation with a pair of binoculars. The coast guards were barely holding the griffons off as a barrage of mortar shells went flying towards them. With the modernised combat tactics of the Air Force, taking out the artillery batteries were relatively easier for the deployed units. However, coordinating two teams from two realms at once had proved to be very challenging for the new apprentice commander.

Eclipse instructed the two teams to sweep the streets, clear out the buildings and take out any hostiles, while he continuously switched position from building to building to assist the team. After some harsh target practice with Windspear and all his previous sniping missions, he had became an elite sharp-shooter himself, which proved to be very effective on the battle field, as enemies fall from the air to the ground one bullet at a time. The remaining coast guards retreated back towards the team as the Wonderbolts and the Shadow Realm Army advanced. Some of the members stayed behind the backlines to assist the Coast Guards and treated the wounded. Their counter attack seemed to be very effective, as the enemies’ defence line slowly backed their way to the harbour. Some of the griffons fled back to the sea, some was captured by the teams. Those who were captured refused to provide any information to the team, and most of them sent themselves back to heaven with the pull of a trigger.

Just as they thought they had regained control of the city, multiple aircrafts entered the air space and started firing at the team. Those hinds and birds seemed to be ally aircrafts by the look of them, as they had the same colour and patterns as the allied ones.

“To all aircrafts in this air space, this is Alpha 0-1, check your fire! Check your fire!” Eclipse yelled through the radio as those aircrafts’ gun torn through their grounded forces.

“Hah, coward! Eat this, dweeb!” The response from radio was a mock that sounded like a griffon. They had apparently raided their weapons against them. The minigun on the helicopter promptly spun up and started spewing out streams of 20mm bullets that went spraying at the Air Force.

Eclipse ducked down promptly as one of the guns went aiming at him. He stretched his artificial wing as he slowly backed into the building step by step. The wing wasn’t made to withstand any caliber higher than a 7.62mm assault rifle round, and would surely be punctured, broken or at least heavily deformed by anything more powerful than that. Those .50 rounds would cut through his wing like a thousand-degree glowing hot knife through butter.

And yet, out of those bullets that did make contact with his improvised ballistic shield, they didn’t rip the wing apart or penetrate it. Dents started to form on the blades, however, which could lead to poor aerodynamics later on, destabilising his flights.

Eclipse didn’t want to push his luck any further, so he sheathed his wing and ran inside the building. The building should buy him sometime to think of how to deal with those griffons and their attack helicopters. He jumped down from levels to levels, hoping to reach the ground floor as quick as he can. He had no anti-aircraft weapons, anti-material rifles, or any explosion of any sort with him to take out the choppers. Requesting a fire mission or calling in air support wouldn’t be fast enough. They’d be torn to pieces before those birds get knocked off the sky.

As he leaped down to the ground floor, he saw multiple wounded soldiers entering the building, both the Shadow Realm team and the Wonderbolts units. Some entered the building on their own, some was assisted by a partner or two, some were crawling on the floor and dragging their severely injured body inside. More and more soldiers fled into the buildings and other shelter nearby. Nothing explosive went off near the troops yet, which he was grateful, as one well-aimed rocket could take dozens of lives of his team.

“Looks like those daft punks haven’t figured out how to fire a rocket yet, but I bet they’d know soon.” Eclipse mumbled to himself, concerned. With nothing explosive to take those flying horrors down over in a safe distance, he would have to take one for the team and destroy those aircrafts close up.

He called up the two experienced lieutenants that he trusted, and gave them a very brief and vague instruction. They will have to break the choppers in close range with a pistol and combat knife, which would be tremendously challenging and risky, as no one in recorded history had attempted to use such technics.

With no previous experience to base on, it would be an ultimate test of agility, speed and faith. Eclipse and his lieutenants hopped out of their shelter and flew up with a powerful leap. The griffons, as expected, started firing at the pegasi. Eclipse dodged the flying lead bits and clipped himself onto one of the choppers. The two lieutenants also managed to hold on to the choppers. Those over-confident griffons thought those veterans could be get rid of easily, and they swung their flying machines round and round to fling the pegasi off. Eclipse looked at the rotor blades, and realised it would be too risky to just shove a knife into the rapid spinning blades. With some quick thinking, he had come up with a better idea.

“Cover their view and crash them together!” Eclipse screamed at the top of his lungs to his lieutenants, hoping that they could hear his command. The noise from the rotor wings were just too loud, but those vigilant pegasi still managed to carry out their task.

Eclipse pulled out his knife and grabbed onto the frame of the cab’s window of the chopper, and he stabbed his knife with monstrous force through the glass on the window. The knife didn’t go through the window entirely, but still managed to be embedded deep in the window. He used the knife as a gripping point and cover the griffon’s vision with his body, making him lose control of where he was going.

For that moment, those choppers, with the pilots pretty much blinded, started to spin and flung around in circles like crazy until eventually their distance with one another became smaller and smaller. Eclipse looked behind him, seeing those choppers getting nearer and nearer, got ready to let go of his knife and detach from the choppers right before they collide and burst into balls of flame.

In Eclipse’s perspective, time seemed to slow down. Everything seemed to be running on a slow-motion video as his gifted quick reflex ability kicked into action. Just as he see the moment comes, he warned his lieutenants, “Down, now!”

As he let go of his grip and free fell off the chopper, the other two pegasi also hopped off as he commanded. Right as they fell away from the spinning flying metal birds, those choppers crashed into one another with a deafening ‘bang’. One of the chopper instantly burst into a giant fireball and fell straight downwards. Another one’s started spewing out thick black smoke after the collision, as it continued spinning out of control and eventually went head on to a building.

Eclipse stretched his wings to slow down his descend and softly landed on the ground once again, and so as the two pegasi. Just as they returned back in the building they were hiding in a few minutes ago, they could hear more choppers inbound as the loud rotor wing engines neared them. Those were allied aircrafts, but who knows if they were like those choppers they just took down, that were controlled by enemy forces?

“Alpha 0-1, this is Valkyrie 2-2, we are arriving at the extraction point, over.”

“Copy that 2-2, make it quick. Alpha 0-1 out.”

“Alright colts, get your flanks on board! We’re getting the hell out of here!” Eclipse directed the wounded units to board the choppers hovering at the landing zone, while keeping an eye out for any threats that might take them by surprise.

The scenes of the exfiltration were really shocking for Eclipse. As the soldiers board one by one, the wounded, the dead, soaked in blood. He was getting used to seeing dead stallions on the field, but it still haunts him every day and night in his dreams. Some struggled to get their brothers-in-arms on board, which Eclipse assisted.

He hopped onto the chopper at last, after everyone was on. No one seemed to be chasing them, which he was grateful. Losing over 1000 soldiers in just 2 hours, simply thinking about it was enough to send shivers down Eclipse’s spine.

Back at the barracks, he sat back down on the chair in his office as usual. He groaned as he read information about the current civil war, report after report. So much had happened within a few days and it had haunted him night after night.

Out of his expectation, there was a knock on the door. It was quite late in the day already, those guys should be sleeping already.

“Come in.” Eclipse sounded.

The door opened slowly as a pegasus stallion stepped inside with a salute gesture. Eclipse raised his head and moved his eyes from the report papers to the sergeant. He has a light blue coat and a black mane. He was in a set of formal Royal Guards plated armour, the golden one with silver stripe on it, for Royal Guards officers and high rank sergeants.

“A Royal Guard huh? What do you need?” The Royal Guards and Wonderbolts weren’t really associated normally, but they did have some joint operations since the war began.

“Sir, my name is Sky Lannister. I was told to notify you about my brother’s funeral. His remains had already been sent back to Neighagra Falls region.” The stallion replied.

“Sky Lannister? Sounds familiar… Where have I heard of this name…”

“Oh that yes, I am Sky Striker’s younger brother. And my parents told me to find you since you two used to be great teammates, according to what Striker said.”

“Oh yes, Master Sergeant Sky Striker… That was an unfortunate tragedy. I’m sorry for your lost, Lannister.”

“Thank you sir. My parents wish to see you right now and to prepare for his funeral.”

“Why are we heading there right now anyway? Like the middle of the night? It’s not very far from here, and even if it is we can always take a plane ride.”
“It’s actually some family traditions. We hold funerals at dawn, for we hope their souls to be greeted by the first break of light in the day to a better place, if you don’t mind that.”

“Oh why should I? If it’s the little thing I can do for my brother in arms, then that’s that. I still have his sergeant badge, his shotgun and his coat. Pains me to see it, but I’m sure he’ll need them, even in his afterlife… And these belong to your family now, anyway. What are we waiting for? Let’s move.”

Eclipse got up from his chair and grabbed his rifle on the rack behind him and some blank shots from the drawer. He led Sky Lannister to his old barracks and took Sky Striker’s belongings with him, and handed it over to Sky Lannister.

“You wanna take a plane, a helicopter, or just fly there? You must be tired after your routine today.” Eclipse asked Sky Lannister.

“Doesn’t matter sir, whatever suits you.” Sky Lannister replied with a humble tone.

“We’ll take a chopper then. Come on, hop on. The seat next to mine.” Eclipse started the engine of the little bird chopper and put on the headset. Sky Lannister hopped on next to Eclipse with a slightly clumsy leap.

After Sky Lannister had settled down, Eclipse flew the chopper straight towards Neighagra Falls. It wasn’t a very long flight, which only took about half an hour. During their flight, they decided to have a little chat, mostly about Sky Striker and the invasion that day.

“Sir, I heard that he was a great teammate, as Captain Windspear said, is that so?”

“Don’t call me sir, call me Eclipse. We’re pretty much a family now, in arms, at least.”

“Right then. Eclipse, got it.”

“So about Striker, he was a really considerate member of the Alpha team, under Captain Windspear’s command along with me. He always had the biggest smiles on his face no matter what happens and would always stand up for the team, especially to protect them when facing threats. He was strong, as a soldier, both physically and mentally. I didn’t even had time to say a goodbye. You see, the Shadow Realm Army Commander told me it was his fault for Alpha Team’s death, but I always think that there are something more than that. Those in the Shadow Realm barely engaged us at all, maybe a soldier or two that decided to actually fight back and shot to kill. The Shadow Realm ‘invaded’ Base Frostbite because they were searching for me, and me only. They didn’t plan to hurt anyone.”

“So you are saying that his death was not caused by the Shadow Realm?”

“Just a hypothesis though. I’ve seen those warriors in the Realm, they are merciful and forgiving, they only had a confirmed kill number of 10, which didn’t include the Alpha team at all…”

“Someone else was up there in the mountains that day?”

“Not sure. Maybe I’ll find it out one day. Sigh. It was such a waste for a good stallion to just… die like this. His body was covered in fatal wounds, I’m not even sure which one did the actual kill. It still haunts my dream whenever I tried to get some sleep. He was a good guy, not only as a fighter, but an actual stallion. For me, even if I can’t avoid his death, I’d at least hope that his death was quick and painless.”

“If I had to guess, it would be the damn griffons. Those bastards have damn sharp claws, sharp eyesight, and even sharper beaks. They scavenged our weapons and used them towards us. Even the Royal Guards’ defence out there got torn apart by their attacks.”

“So those stolen choppers at Manehatten this morning… Well, that’s kind of a big conclusion, don’t you think?”

“Like I said, I’m just guessing. They’re the closest to the Crystal Mountains that can actually fly there in a short amount of time.”

“Fair enough.”

“How’s Captain Windspear? I heard he was also injured in the operation.”

“He broke his legs, really badly. He retired right after that day and made me the new Head-Commander. I was with him upon landing, but the rest of the was KIA at the moment I reached them, including your brother.”

“Honestly, upon seeing my brother’s remains, I was pretty damn sure those griffons was somewhat involved, if not actually triggering the invasion itself. Those slashes on them looked like claw marks to me.”

“Maybe they’re bayonets, maybe they’re claws. Whatever the truth is, it requires investigation. If those damn griffons are proved guilty, I would put those bastards head on a spike.”

Time passed as they talked on and on. It was somewhere around 2 to 3 am by the time they landed. A few ponies were already down near the waterfall.

They exited the chopper and approached the ponies there. With the lights from the chopper, they could see their faces clearly.

“Mom, dad, I got Captain Eclipse from Cloudsdale.” Sky Lannister spoke.

“Oh yes, hello there Captain, I am Striker and Lannister’s father. Thank you so much for attending Striker’s funeral, I hope this didn’t mess up your routine? I mean, the war is going crazy right now…” One old stallion turned towards Eclipse and shook his hoof with Eclipse.

“Oh no no no, it’s okay. It’s the least I can do for my old friend. So are we waiting for sunrise?”

“Uhh yes. We hope he soul can walk in the shine of dawn. This tradition has been in practice for at least 20 generation in my family.”

“That’s some history. Actually I have got the rest of Striker’s belongings from the barracks. Now that he isn’t able to obtain his new badge of office, I think you would be suitable to talk the honour?”

“Oh no, I’m no fighter, at least for the last 30 or so years. Give it to Lannister. He still got a long way to go, and he is a great warrior at least in my eyes.”

Eclipse smiled upon hearing that. In the dead of the night there wasn’t much light, but the full moon tonight had shined upon the lands, and Eclipse can see fairly clearly under the reflection of the moon.

He turned around and pinned the badge on Lannister’s armour. He can’t actually pin it, so he just hung the badge over on a strap on his armour.

A slight reflection of sunlight from the break of dawn shined on the glorious badge of office.

“Now, you are the older brother. His honour passes onto you, Lannister.”

“Thank you, sir.” He saluted upon accepting the honour.

Day break had arrived as the horizon started to brighten up from the daylight. It went from total darkness to a light purple colour.

They proceeded towards the waterfall, where a bunch of logs and twigs stacked up on top of each other in the pond of water underneath the fall. Striker’s body was on top of the pile.

“So, cremation? That’s kind of unexpected. I thought that you bury the dead like how the rest of Equestria.”

“The fall has been the crematorium for the honourable colts and fillies for over a century now. Their ash would flow back into the ocean with the running stream from the waterfall, while their soul walks the path of the dawn to their final destination of eternal rest and peace.”

“Should we include his coat or not? You can keep it if you wish, or let Striker take that with him.”

“It pains me to see the holes and slashes on this coat. His blood, my blood, stains this coat. Include it, It would make all of us feel better…”

Eclipse flew up to the pile and carefully fitted the coat onto Striker’s body. He took one last look at his old friend before he came back down. The wounds were covered up with some cloths, mostly just to make his final appearance in his life less visceral and leave him with the dignity and respect he deserved.

Eclipse finally returned down as he saw a tiny face of the sun rising up from the eastern horizon. Since the lumber pile was away from the waterfall itself, it was actually dry. His father lit a touch and tossed it towards the pile. The husk and the twigs on the pile caught fire almost instantly and Eclipse found himself staring at his best mate’s burning corpse as it got engulfed in thew flames.

Eclipse took out Striker’s shotgun. Although cleaned with soap and water, it still had some obvious taints of blood on it. He loaded it up with the blank shots he brought with him, and took out a few spare rifles from the chopper and handed those the family.

“Normally this would only happen in large occasions like a victory in war and something like that, but given that he deserved such respect, I guess we can do a small-scale salute here. Just wait for my signal and fire your weapons at the sky.”

Eclipse waved a hoof as the signal for everyone to fire their rifles. It was a small scale 21-gun salute for Striker. The loud bang of perfect gun fire synchronisation echoed in the mountains, sending birds flying off into the distance.

“And for this shotgun, you can hold on to it. Keep it as a memory.” Eclipse handed the shotgun to the father and took the rifles back.

“And Lannister, you are more than welcome to ‘compensate’ our lost of your brother in the Alpha team, if you wish so. I’m sure General Shining would approve as long as I give the word. That is, if you want to. Feel free to find me if you want to.” Eclipse told Lannister before taking off once again and flew to the distant sky.

“May Striker’s spirit guide your path.” The father said with a sigh.

Chapter 4 - To Kill an Empire

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 5 - New Faces

Author's Note

Any tough bastards would still need love and care to stay strong.

Chapter 6 would return to the civil war again.

Chapter 5 - New Faces

Granite returned to Canterlot with Krossair in bond, while Eclipse went back to Cloudsdale to take a rest. It’s been quite some time since Eclipse had a good night of sleep, either way. Back on his bed in his office, he lied down, and quickly drifted to sleep.

While Krossair was locked up and waiting to be tried for his crimes, Granite rushed Obsidian to the medics, hoping to save her from the brim of death. Krossair was too brutal, and Obsidian couldn’t take it.

Obsidian was resting in the same hospital as Captain Windspear was, and Granite had no place to stay in Equestria, so he called the Wonderbolts barracks home for the time being. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place to stay for him, but at least he didn’t need to camp out in the wilderness.

The Shadow Realm and Griffonstone may have supported Equestria’s defence, but this wouldn’t apply for every single tribe. They were just lucky to have 2 allies on their side. With over 20 tribes out there planning to overrun the nation, they would need more allies.

The Equestrian forces had control of the eastern border and the centre area, with northern and southern areas under constant attack by various enemy forces. Their best bet would be controlling the western area, and hopefully finding some allies to assist them in the war.

Since they had little to no knowing about the undiscovered west, their best bet would be Eclipse, the one that had actually been there. Back at Canterlot once again, a conference was held regarding the undercover western region of Equestria.

“By the look of it, that place is most likely wilderness. There are small towns and villages around the coastline, with not-so advanced technology. I doubt that we could find much use there.” Eclipse reported.

“Rumour has it that there are creatures and abominations there. You sure you haven’t seen anything strange there?”

“Speaking of abominations, there are actually some, as far as I know. There was a mare I saw back then in an inn. She is a white mare, with both horns and wings. And I saw bat ponies there, I wonder if those bat ponies’ attack are actually originated from that place.”

“Horn and wings? You mean alicorns? Like Us?” Celestia asked.

“Kind of, but I doubt that. Considering that born-alicorns are rare, and trained-alicorns even rarer, I would say they just look like alicorns, but are just some kind of abomination of unicorns and pegasus.”

“I’ve heard of that. Those are most likely the forbidden alicorns, ponies that looked like alicorns, but do necessarily contain a legitimate alicorn’s power. Essentially just a unicorn with wings. Mostly, they have power equivalent to a typical unicorn, but some can reach higher level, although not as much as a true alicorn.”

“Sounds promising. No matter what they are, if they could help us in this war, then it’s worth a try for negotiation. “

“Tread carefully, we don’t know what else is out there.”

With that, Eclipse left the castle and on his way towards the west again. Granite, as a part in the United Equestrian Forces, decided to follow him. Since Equestria’s previous greatest threat - the griffons were dealt with, they would have plenty of time to plan before retaking the other regions of Equestria.

The western region of Equestria was covered by jungles and dark forests, covering a majority of the land. With that, proceeding there with aircrafts wouldn’t be a wise idea. Instead, Eclipse and Granite drove a jeep there.

Traveling on land, it took way more time to arrive there than by air. Crossing mountains upon mountains, through plateaus and basins. It would take at least two days to arrive there.

It was actually Granite’s idea. They could have chosen to fly to the borders of the undiscovered area, and then travel with a jeep. Apparently he thought that a jeep ride of adventure was a good idea, and it actually was. Both Eclipse and Granite found themselves enjoying the adventure and treated it as a remedy.

“I don’t know, I think I started to feel better after all this madness going on previously.”

“I guess I can finally accept the fact that the Alpha team is gone for good. They were good soldiers, and they deserves eternal peace in their afterlife. How about you? Still having trouble forgiving your past?”

“Krossair is tried and would soon be put to an execution, that’s a good thing. Think about it, if I didn’t have the greed and hunger for power, fame and wealth, Griffonstone would not be plunged into chaos, those in Manehatten and Baltimare wouldn’t have to die, and Obsidian wouldn’t have to go through all of this.”

“The damage had be done, this is a fact. My brother taught me that, if we just let our past act as shackles and incapacitate ourselves, the world wouldn’t become a better place. It’s about how we move forward to the future. It doesn’t matter what damage we have caused anymore, how we’re going to fix this is what it matters the most. I used to be a beast, nothing more than a puppet of the dark magic that was controlling me. I destroyed a lot, but now, I let it go, and I now serve this land with all the gifted power I have.”

“That day, the invasion of the Crystal Mountains, it was Krossair’s idea, and I supported his plan. The Shadow Realm was there first, but we decided to strike, and masked the truth that the Shadow Realm was the true invaders. That time, I knew that there was an armoury with high end weaponry in the base from the documents in the office there.”

“I knew that if we were to conquer this place, and all of Griffonstone, I would need something powerful enough to devastate everything. I didn’t actually planned to harm anyone in this place, I would just hold a missile for ransom, but then like 10 of them showed up. I was outnumbered, and they were actively hunting for me. I had no choice but to fight back. I wanted to minimise the casualties, but they were so damn hostile, so I had no choice but to kill them. One was so damn tough, I gave him a few slashes, and he was bleeding like crazy. He wasn’t going down, so I put a few more shots on him with my magnum.”

“Is he wielding a 12-gauge?”

“Not sure, but he was wilding a shotgun, and he looked like Lannister somehow.”

Eclipse sighed. He just focused on driving again and stayed silent.

“I’m sorry.” Granite apologised.

“Don’t tell Lannister. I’m alright. I’ve seen enough life and death. Lannister used to be just a Royal Guard. He hasn’t been in the battlefield for long. If he knows that you killed his brother, I don’t know what he would do. You might as well worry about Obsidian.”

“I don’t know mate, with her current situation, I fear that she wouldn’t make it…”

“She’ll make it. I can see it. When this war is over, I would chop a mountain retreat for you in Shadow Realm, and I guess you could finally live the
life you were longing to live.”

“Heh. That is if we don’t lose the war.”

“Come on. With us, how would we lose?”

Two days seemed like forever on road, but they had made it. From that point, no map to guide them, but Eclipse’s previous memory that was leading them through the wilderness.

They stopped at the inn Eclipse stayed during his escape that day. Eclipse headed in the inn again, while Granite followed after he parked the jeep for Eclipse.

Eclipse headed for the bar table, just like the day that day. It was the same bartender, same wine, same setting. It was like living that day all over again. The two sat down on the stool and ordered some drinks.

“Oh it’s you sir! Haven’t got a chance to say goodbye with you that day. I haven’t even asked what you name is.” The bartender started. He was a mare, with a red ribbon on her mane. A cup of beer as her cutie mark, and her fur was the colour of apple grunt.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry that I left so rushed that day. My name is Eclipse, and this is my friend Granite. You are?”

“AppleAle.”

“Nice to meet you, Ale. Actually, I return today with a reason. I was wondering if you had seen that mare that sat next to me that day.”

“Huh? I’m sorry, but I have a little problem remember who you’re talking about. You know, I have a lot of mare customers.”

“Oh right. She has white fur, in a pink and purple uniform. She ordered a cup of of drink and left.”

“Oh, you mean Colonel Lightningbolt. She’s a tough mare, not the kind that you can just see and call upon.”

“This isn’t a problem. Just tell me when and where can I find her.”

“She told me not to tell anyone about it.”

“How about bits? 50?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“Oh come on, I’m the Head-Commander of the Wonderbolts.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Prince of the Shadow Realm!”

“Seriously, I don’t know, and I won’t tell you.”

“Damn!”

“Come on Eclipse. Let’s just try something else.”

“No! I’m damn sure she’s the one I’m looking for.”

The two sat there, waiting for something to happen, but neither of them knew what they were waiting for.

That was until the door of the inn opened again, and the mare Eclipse was looking for finally arrived.

“AppleAle. Same drink. Extra ice.” The mare called.

“Alright then.” AppleAle responded, and turned around to prepare the drink for her customer.

“So you are Colonel Lightningbolt.”

“Yeah, and who are you?”

“I believe we have met before.”

“Oh have we? I’m sorry, I don’t remember that.”

Eclipse sighed and gulped down his drink. He put the tankard down and headed out towards the jeep and got on. Granite followed right behind him.

“Hey, hey! What’s the matter? Why do you have to be so pissed?”

Eclipse started the car engine and drove away from the inn.

“You aren’t pissed because of a mare right?”

Eclipse smirked, “I thought my act got them good, I can’t believe that you fell for it too. All I needed was what’s the organisation she is in, and I got it.”

“You mean, the Western Sentinels?”

“Bingo. I know where they called base, and we’re heading there in the morning.”

“Damn, you’re smart.”

Eclipse just smiled.

The arrived at the base in the morning. This place looked kind of broken and obsolete. A grass field surrounded by chain link fence. The two waited at the gate, for Lightningbolt to come out.

“Eclipse, stop looking like you are looking for a damn girlfriend. You’re looking for an ally for the war!” Granite nudged Eclipse.

Eclipse remained silent and waited. Granite had no idea what Eclipse had in mind, so he decided to just shut up and watch.

“Here she comes.” Eclipse said under his breathe, as the are he was looking for stepped out from the bungalow to the field. She looked towards
the gate and spotted Eclipse and Granite, so she headed towards them. A few mares followed right behind her as she walked towards the two.

“What are you doing here?” Lightningbolt asked.  “I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but the rest of Equestria is in war now. I was sent here to request for alliance and aid in the war effort.” Eclipse responded.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“I’d like to know.”

“Colonel Lightningbolt, the mare in charge of the Western Sentinels. And who are you? I do not fancy strangers in my department.”

“Captain Eclipse, Head-Commander of the Wonderbolts, Equestrian Royal Air Force.”

“General Granite, Commander of the Griffonstone Royal Agents.”

“Wait, you’re Granite? Like, Obby’s fiancé? Malachite’s buddy?” Lightningbolt was shocked among hearing the name “Granite”.

“Uhh, yes?”

“Oh, Obsidian and I had been friends since I was just a filly. She had actually came here before, and she mentioned a lot of things about you. So what about that Krossair?”

“Dead, or exiled. I own Griffonstone now, at least for the moment.”

“Awesome.”

“But seriously, we’re here to talk about an alliance for the civil war. And honestly, I would be here today if it wasn’t Eclipse, so yeah.”

“A friend of Obby is a friend of mine, so I guess I can help.”She answered Granite.

She then turned to Eclipse, “In one condition.”

“Which is?” Eclipse asked with an eyebrow raised.

“If you can defeat me, in a flying show off.”

“Come on, I do those before breakfast everyday, at least before the war started.”

“We’ll see to that, Captain. I guess I shall go first, just to show you what a master flyer’s moves look like.”

As she said that, she leaped up into the air and levitated herself by flapping her wings, and flew straight up high up in the sky. With a dash, she dove straight downwards and did a huge flip, with a spin and an elegant twist she slowly landed, like an angel from heaven.

Eclipse was mesmerised by her performance and Granite found his partner staring at the mare without moving a single muscle on his body. Upon her landing, her teammates clapped their hooves and cheered for her, and she bowed, like a champion.

Eclipse stopped his staring once her performance was complete, and stretched his wings, popped his joints, preparing for the show down.

“There’s still time for you to back away and not embarrass yourself, if you think this is too difficult for you.” Lightningbolt taunted.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure I can handle it.” Eclipse replied humbly, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings right away, after all.

“We’ll see to that then, Captain.” She teased.

“Confident mare, I like that.” He mumbled under his breathe, he still remember that day when he first met that mare. He still remember the feeling of blossom within his heart that day. He still remember that he liked that mare upon seeing her. He realised that he wasn’t just looking for an ally for the civil war out there, but also a mare his natural instinct guided him to pursue.

He knew that he can’t fail, both for the future of Equestria and his own dignity. He did a sprint head started before jumping high and flew up. With the add of the warm, rising air, he quickly ascended to the cloud’s height and did a free fall. He rotated his body so that his back was parallel towards the ground, and flew in circles. And with the aid of the wind, he started flying backwards, while maintaining his control, making him glide along a path of wing up in the sky. With another spin, he folded his wings and reopened them once he along hit the ground, creating an insane lifting force that sent him back up in the sky. As he returned to his position, he saw a small bunch of flowers near a corner of the field, so he dashed straight towards it and grabbed it as he approached the bush. He made another tight turn and finally, with a front roll, landed in front of Lightningbolt, with the flower in his hooves, towards the mare.

The mare blushed as the stallion landed, half due to her embarrassment of boasting her skill at the stallion, and half due to the flowers he offered. Her face was rose red when the team behind her cheered louder for Eclipse. Lightningbolt, although being over-confident about her flying skill, still knew when to draw the line for her boasting and taunting.

“Wow, your performance was… absolutely stunning. I’m sorry for what I’ve said before, and I’d gladly provide any aid you might need from now on.” She apologised, her cheeks felt so hot that it was almost like burning. Not many stallions had treated her that well before.

“Nah, it’s nothing. Thank you very much for your offer.”

“But before we actually fight, there is a small problem to solve, it’s about my team actually.”

“What is it? Your team look alright and straight up professional.”

“You see, they have the power, the magic power, the strength and endurance for flying. However, they still lack the training and skills in actual battles. Yes, we guard the western area of Equestria, but we don’t have specific training on an actual military operation. Frankly, we never even left this region in our life.”

“You all have basic flying and combat training. That’s enough. All you need are some weapons training and you are all combat-ready.”

“Alright, sounds fine for me. When do we start?”

“We can do some lecture about modern weaponry today, and let them choose what they want to use tomorrow. We don’t have too much time, since we are still losing ground out there, so we must hurry.”

Eclipse wasn’t the best lecturer in Equestria, but to teach a team of mares to use guns should be easy, considering he used to do so on a daily basis. With the assistance of Granite, it was rather easy for him.

That night, Eclipse returned to the base to prepare for practical training for the next day, and he saw the mare flying in the air, which she seemed to struggle a lot. Apparently she was trying to mimic what Eclipse had accomplished that morning. When she tried to do the flip Eclipse did, she lost control in the air, and she was stuck flying in circles and spinning like crazy in the wind.

Eclipse had flashbacks of the Invasion of the Crystal Mountains, where the strong wind torn the team apart. It kind of haunted him for a while, until he shook himself awake and realised that Lightningbolt needed help, immediately. He flew up with a leap and dashed straight at the mare. Just as she was about to fall from the sky, he caught her in his front legs and she found herself being awkwardly embraced by the stallion.

Eclipse touched down gently and placed Lightningbolt down. She was a bit shocked by that chaos in the air, but she eventually calmed down. The competitive mare had apparently pushed herself to hard to win everyone and be supreme in flight.

“Thank… thank you for helping me, Captain.” Lightningbolt thanked Eclipse, while she was still panting and trying to figure out what just happened.

“It’s nothing, my dear. Call me Eclipse, by the way.”

“Alright then… Eclipse.”

“Why would you even try that? That took me 2 years to master.”

“I..uhh… I was just hoping that I can be cool in front of my team and everyone here.”

“Competitive is good, only when you know how to draw the line.”

“Right, right. Thank you… darling- I mean, Eclipse.” She staggered.

Eclipse smirked. “Hah. What is it? Why are you blushing like crazy?”

“What- No, I’m not…”

“Yes you are, dear.”

“Come on, just let me have dinner, we can always talk later…” With that, she stepped away from the stallion, almost mortified from the situation. She surely had a bit of feeling towards the stallion as well, but she didn’t want to admit it, just yet.

Eclipse was very certain that he liked the mare, and he could sense that she also had feelings towards him too. He decided to try again tomorrow, as he could maybe invite her out for dinner or something. The Equestria part of the deal was secured, but his own part wasn’t, yet.

He stayed in the inn with Granite for that night, sharing the same room to save bits. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience for the two, but they’re both soldiers and they were pretty much used to cluster together in a night, although sounding somewhat gay.

In the morning, as soon as the first beam of sunlight hit the land, Eclipse and Granite already arrived at the training compound and Lightningbolt arrived next.

Somewhere around 9am, the team had arrived and once again ready for their duty and routine. Eclipse and Granite brought a few guns with them, as well as some special range weapons, just in case some of them has special needs and didn’t want to use a typical firearm.

Eclipse and Granite instructed everyone about different kinds of firearms, and teaches them to use the guns. Everyone could pick what guns they felt comfortable to use in battle. Although they would be using their magic more than actual firearms, it was a good way to show them what they would be up against out there, and learning to use a firearm essentials gave them a second option for self defence, should the need arises.

Lightningbolt, however, found herself disliking firearms. They were bulky, the recoil was hard, the reloading was troublesome, and they were just not the kind of weapons for mares like her.

“I do have a kind of weapon, that served in the battlefield since the start of First Celestial Era, single shot, but light weight, simplistic, and you could control how powerful each shot is.”

“Sounds nice, show me the weapon, as long as it isn’t a gun.”

Eclipse went back to his jeep to take the weapon. After a moment, the weapon was in Lightningbolt’s hooves, an arm made of carbon fibre, with a piece of string tying the the two ends of the arm together. Some accessories were attached on the arm, like sliding wheels and sights. It was a compound bow, light weight, simplistic, and silent.

Eclipse demonstrated how to use a bow and arrows, and he guided Lightningbolt to do so. As she was holding the bow, Eclipse stood right next to her, and guided her aim by rising his hooves to guide her front legs. His face touched hers, and they could feel each other’s breathe gently blowing at each other.

She was a fast learner, and she mastered archery with an afternoon’s practice. She was almost like she was born to shoot with a bow. Soon her accuracy was way supreme than her team, and almost even better than Eclipse himself.

Eclipse haven’t felt the feeling of love since he was born, until now. He had an indescribable feeling of faith in his live, and he felt like his life had a purpose, and he must win the war, not own for his nation, but for love, to protect what he loved and cared.

By the evening, everyone was getting hungry. Eclipse seized the opportunity and actively invited Lightningbolt for dinner, which the mare gladly accepted. They decided to head to a higher class restaurant for that night.

Although still in their uniforms, which would be more accurate to be described as battle attires, they still looked high class enough to enter. They ordered some steak for dinner that night. Eclipse knew that his funds would be drained in an instant, but since when had this stallion cared about that.

“So, you’ve never been anywhere else in Equestria before?”

“I never did, and so as my team. Most of us just stayed here for our entire lifetime.”

“Won’t you all wonder how the outer world looks like?”

“Look, I’m a forbidden alicorn and I am not eager to head out to be discriminated or treated like an exotic creature. One had tried to go beyond the boundary of our land, and it didn’t turn out so great for him.”

“But if this is the case, why would you decide to come along with me?”

“At first it was just for Granite and Obsidian, but later on I realised that… I wanna see the land, explore how big it is, and with someone special.”

“Someone special?”

“Yes… yes… Someone special. I knew for sure I have feelings for him, but I fear that he won’t, after how I treated him..”

“Then tell me who he is, maybe I can help?”

“It’s.. you.” She staggered, she was quite afraid of Eclipse’s response.

Eclipse chuckled. It was hard to believe that a competitive and tough mare could become so shy when she came across such topics.

“Don’t be silly, dear. If you fear that I don’t like you, then I should fear worse. Remember how you talked to me before the showdown? I have feelings to you as well, literally the first time I saw you in the inn.”

“Oh, right.. I’m sorry..”

“Nah, silly. You don’t have to be sorry. Your competitive instinct and confidence is why I like you. Besides, you look very cool when flying, while being so cute on the ground.”

“Really? Thanks…”

“We’ve met for at most a week, and we already like each other. It was weird to think about, but honestly, since the war started, when have I seen anything positive happen? All I see are bodies and blood. All I hear are gunfire and screams. All I smell is the scent of blood and gunpowder. All I taste is blood. All I feel is pain. War can change anyone and everyone. I didn’t expect to find someone I love, until now.”

“So are we… couples?”

“Affermative, my dear.”

Lightningbolt couldn’t help but feel the tears tracing down her face. It was tears of joy, and both could feel their love with each other. Eclipse felt incredibly faithful and energised, way more than before. The two stood up and Lightningbolt embraced the stallion tight with her front legs, which Eclipse responded with a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Dinner was over and Eclipse paid for their meals. The two decided to go for a walk at the coast, under the silvery moonlight and the cool breeze from the sea. It was enjoyable for the two, as their wings covered each other’s back. The two sat down on the beach and embraced each other as they got mesmerised by the night sky.

It wasn’t until Eclipse’s phone vibrated furiously in his pocket that he drew himself back out from his dream. It was Granite calling him.

“What is it damn it, I was having a great time.”

“Eclipse, the compound is under attack!”

“What? You kidding me?”

“Do I sound like I’m messing with you? Get Bolt and get over here and help! The team wouldn’t hold much longer!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll head over now, just hang tight.”

“You better make it quick!”

As Eclipse hung up the call, he notified Lightningbolt about the news. She wasn’t surprised about the news however.

“Meh, those damn random creatures again. They always pick a fight with us.”

“No! This time it’s different!” A voice said behind them. The two turned their backs, only to find Shadestep stepping out of a portal, with the two’s weapons in his hooves.

“We were supposed to work on some solutions of dark magic for the civil war, but something went wrong, and it apparently contaminated some creatures here. Those bastards soaked in dark magic are destroying stuff here!Now take this and go!” He tossed them their guns and bow as he proceeded to the compound.

Before Shadestep left, he passed a sword to Eclipse.

“This is the sword for you. Me, you, Lunar. We all own a sword like this. There is power inside this blade, make good use of it.”

The two arrived at the compound to meet up with the team. There were a few massive creatures that seemed to be born in a nightmare. Horns, sharp teeth, tentacles, spikes, essentially any abomination you could imagine.

“Oh Shade, what have you done…” Eclipse muttered.

“Open fire!” “Guns! Guns! Guns!” The team opened fire at the abominations. It was their first mission using firearm, and it was turning out not so well, as those abominations advanced and growled.

Eclipse decided to try out his new sword, and he activated his dark power. His eyes once again glow the lime green colour, with purple smoke spewing out from the corner of his eye. His hooves were on fire, and the blade also burnt with a bright purple flame.

He flew up and chopped the abomination with a few cuts. The Western Sentinels used to deal with these kind of creatures before, but with dark magic this time? None of them was previously trained to deal with such situations, but they’ll just have to improvise for this. Along with the rifles and guns, the mares also used their magic to shoot at those weird looking, pale green monsters. Shadestep assisted Eclipse in stabbing and slicing those abominations, especially tentacles that might grab on to anyone.

Eclipse managed to stab one to death as the team dealt with the rest. One of the member was injured, but they at least got the situation under
control. After putting hundreds of rounds on those abominations, one more had fallen, while the other fled back into the forest.

The battle took them almost 6 hours, and one wounded in action. It was already 4am as they defeated those creatures. Shadestep and Granite stayed to inspect the two dead abominations, while Eclipse and Lightningbolt checked on the mares for their well-being.

“What the heck is this? There’s something pink here… In the one I killed.”

“Cut it open, see what that is. Hope that’s not some kind of sack filled with fluids, because those are damn gross.”

“What entire nation… It’s a mare! Tangled up in the tentacles… By the Shadows, it gross here.”

“Bring her out!”

Shadestep freed the mare after cutting her loose from the grasp of the abomination, and set her on the ground. Granite went over to investigate Shadestep’s finding. The mare didn’t move a muscle at all.

“Is she dead or something?”

“She still has heartbeat, and breathing, barely.”

“Hey Eclipse, Bolt, you’ve gotta see this!”

Hearing Granite’s calling, the two rushed to see what they have found. They saw the mare lying on the ground motionlessly, and Lightningbolt was surprised.

“What is it Bolt?”

“She’s… Dasher.”

“Dasher?”

“Dasher is my sister, but she went missing a few years ago. No one knew what happened, but since that night she hadn’t returned. Everyone just assumed that she’s captured by some random creatures like the one there and died.”

“Funny enough, I actually cut her loose from that abomination there.” Shadestep interrupted with a chuckle.

“Either way, thank you so much, darling, Grand, and who’s this?”

“He’s Shadestep, my older brother from the Shadow Realm. I also have a younger brother named Lunar, which isn’t here right now.”

As they talked, the mare lying on the ground slowly awakened with a few coughs. She gently opened her eyes as she sat up from the ground.

“Where am I?” Dasher asked, dead confused.

“Sister!” Lightningbolt was at cloud nine upon seeing her sister’s awakening, and she embraced her sister within her front legs.

“I thought you were never going to return!”

“How long have I been lost? I’ve lost count of time already. Those damn abominations in the forest are not to be underestimated.”

“It’s been years, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The only that matters now is that you’re back.”

“Who saved me? Is it this handsome stallion?” She asked as she looked at Eclipse.

“No, it wasn’t me. He did. He’s Shadestep, my brother.” Eclipse pointed at Shadestep.

“Oh, you’re the handsome on that pulled me loose from that thing, thank you so much. You’re surely welcome to visit me anytime you pass by.”

“Alright then, thanks for that.” The black stallion was seen blushing by everyone around for the first time.

“Hey, darling.” Lightningbolt nudged Eclipse.

“What is it?”

“The sun is rising soon. Wanna see the western sunrise?”

“I’d gladly accept your offer, Colonel.”

The two chuckled. Lightningbolt led Eclipse up a mountain top, and there they could see that very dim yellow beam of light slowly getting brighter and brighter. Although the stallion had saw countless sunrises, this one was different.

The fact that he was lying next to his lover somehow made the sunrise he was looking more beautiful.

“Actually, Bolt. I had one concern that I feared to tell you when I first met you. Now that we had been through this much, I reckon it wouldn’t be a problem telling you this.”

“Which is?”

“Do you believe in conjuration and necromancy?”

“Kind of. I mean, I haven’t seen something being conjured.”

“Now you see one, right in front of your eyes.” He turned to look at his mare.

“What do you mean?”

“Would you believe that I am summoned by dark magic, had no actual life, and could in fact just turn into a pile of black ash upon death?”

“Frankly, yes. I mean, Equestria is always a magical place, and it is even more… weird in the west. I’ve seen a lot of strange but interesting thing in my life comparing to where you live, but a stallion that was summoned by dark magic? That’s a whole new story.”

“You still love me, right?”

“Of course, silly, why wouldn’t I? I would never judge someone by their background or appearance. Okay maybe I did, I used to, but at least for you, I won’t.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Speaking of appearance, what’s with your wing and your eye?”

“Funny that you mentioned that. It was actually Granite. He took off my wings one time in an invasion and scratched my eyelid at Baltimare. We used to be nemesis because of Krossair. Now with Krossair locked up and waiting for an execution, we called truce and joined force to continue fighting in the civil war.”

“Wow, you sure have a lot adventures.”

“Yes I do, and there will be more coming. Adventure of me and you. I wish I could marry you right away, but let’s just leave that until the end of the war.”

Chapter 6 - Take Back the Night

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Chapter 7 - Out of the Rabbit Hole

While Bolt and Granite were figuring out how to rescue the two stallions that were imprisoned and held captive by the villain of the night, the moon never set for days. A week had passed but not a single second of sunlight had shined upon the lands of Equestria.

Temperature dropped drastically without the sunlight, and without the periodic maintenance of the weather control pegasus units for days, it started to snow. The soldiers on the field switched to their winter battle attire to keep warm from the chilling winds. They couldn’t start a fire easily under the unbalanced weather conditions, and could only hope someone fix this problem. Those who woke up found the moon still high up in the dark purple sky no matter how long they had slept.

Most of the soldiers on the field were horrified. The night had been continuous for at least an entire week. Princess Celestia did tried to raise the sun in order to restore some light and warmth to the lands, but with the moon in the way, that was the best she could do without blinding every single creature in the lands with a solar eclipse.

The Griffonstone Army was also having trouble with the cold weather even back at the Eastern Equestria region. Not only that it was just continuous darkness and night time that messed up time perception, the fact that simply losing sunlight had cause major impact on cultivation and the nature ecosystem as a lot of plants had died and withered away with the lack of nutritious sunlights for photosynthesis. Even the air they breathed were damp and dirty.

Eclipse was staring outside through an opening from the ground to his cell. It wasn’t wide enough to even fit a hoof through, but it was wide enough for him to peek outside of the eternal darkness of the castle. Eclipse could see everything clearly with his gifted powers, but Shining Armor couldn’t. He was almost completely blinded within the darkness, and he could only see so little under the dim light that passed through the gaps of the cell from the outside.

The two was locked up together in the same cell. Since Nightmare Moon’s plan was to make her sister bow before her, surrender and pass everything she own over to herself, rather than simply taking over Equestria with war, she decided to keep everything that was not involved with her sister directly one piece. Moreover, the two generals would be very valuable assets in her campaign later on.

She treated the two well enough that the two was comfy and warm in their cell. There were plenty of space to move around within the cell, and the two wasn’t tied up and therefore can move freely. They were giving thick blankets and soft mattresses, and even a phone charger for Eclipse - even though there wasn’t any mobile phone signal under the influence of the dark magic aura around them.

They had unlimited supply of food and drink, as long as they asked for it, the Guards would offer what they need to them, just as the Princess had ordered. Since her ultimate goal was to gain control without causing further destruction, so she must keep the two soldiers as comfortable as she can offer, so that eventually they might choose sides and to fight for her.

“How long have we been in this damn place? I feel like I’m rotting alive.” Shining Armor asked, as he was munching on some chocolate that he requested from the guards.

“At least a damn week by now. If I don’t look at the phone I would just guess 2 days. I can’t even determine how long has passed in this place.” Eclipse checked on his phone.

“I just hope that those changelings and dragons had breached through our defences in the South.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but they had breached through the defences there. Princess Celestia had confirmed that the South is lost and had summoned the Sentinel Task Force to assist in the war effort. I just fear that, without our commands, the Royal Guards and the Royal Air Force would stall.”

“So, how’s Sky Lannister doing in your team? He’s a brave, vigilant and smart stallion. Assigning him to guard the castle in Canterlot would be a waste for an elite soldier like him, so when he requested to be assigned to the Wonderbolts, I was quite glad to accept his request.”

“Sky Lannister, just as elite as his late brother Sky Striker. He is willing to learn, and always has an open mind. For me, being the commander of the Air Force, he reminded me of myself when I was still a lieutenant under command of Captain Windspear. I would not doubt to promote him to a lieutenant should the opportunity comes. He and me is just like how it was with me and Captain Windspear.”

“Sometimes I really wonder, why do you always wear clothes and pants? Like, we’re ponies, we don’t normal walk around wearing clothes, unless you’re those rich bastards up there in the Canterlot Commercial Area.”

“Actually, I don’t really know. I just feel better with clothes covering my body mostly. It’s not exactly useful by any mean, but it’s like a symbol.”

“What does your cutie mark even look like? I reckon no one had seen it since we met you.”

“Why do you really care about that little mark on my flank really? Just to answer you your question, none. I have no cutie mark, the end. ‘Why no cutie mark?’ you ask again? Well, how do I know? Ask my father King Sombra, he might know.”

“Really?”

“Do I really need to take of my pants just to prove this?”

“Umm, no you don’t need to…”

Shining Armor blushed upon Eclipse’s question, as he realised that that was quite an inappropriate question to ask.

“Anyways, any reinforcements coming in to rescue us?”

“I think Grand and Bolt are working on it. I suppose with the Wonderbolts and Royal Guards stalled due to our absence out there, our best bet would be the Sentinel Task Force or the Griffonstone Royal Agents, or hopefully both of them.”

“Right… Hope that really happens. I can’t bear to sit here for my entire life.”

“True warriors break out of their captive by themselves.”

“But how? The cell bars are old but tinted with dark magic, the walls behind us are too rigid to bust through with bare hooves, and moreover, there are guards here. I can’t even see a single thing in the darkness!”

“You are blinded, but I am not. I see things here as clearly just as it’s a bright sunny day at the outside. And actually, I have a trick up my sleeve that we can try.” Eclipse pulled Shining Armor over and whispered the words in his ears.

“What you planning on doing?” Shining Armor whispered back, not knowing what the stallion had in mind.

“Do you know what is the greatest weakness of a stallion?”

“Pain? Wealth?”

“Not exactly. Think as a stallion, like we are. We are Princes and Captains, we’ve been through pain, and we have wealth, which would not be a weakness of us.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Who do you miss the most now?”

“Cadence, duh.”

“Exactly. Mares. Mares are the greatest weakness of a stallion. Even the toughest stallions with the strongest will cannot withstand the attraction of lust from a mare.”

“So what are you trying to imply? How the hell are we gonna get a mare?”

“I know dark magic, remember? And as long as I remember that spell, we can use what we have here to strike their greatest weakness.”

“You mean, you’re gonna create a mare out of thin air?”

“Nah, I’m still not powerful enough to create things like how I was created. However, I can use it on myself.”

“You’re going to… become a mare?”

“Impossible? Or irresistible?”

“Whatever. As long as you don’t mess that magic with me, and it gets us out of this place, fine.”

“Alright, that’s a deal then. However, I would need your cooperation to kick this off.”

“Which is?”

“Just pretend that you are gonna to well… you know that part. Just try to blend in and cover the act. This is going to make them less vigilant. Once they got near me, take one. I will take care of the other one. Keep it silent and we’ll be out here in no time.”

Shining Armor blushed a little upon hearing Eclipse’s odd suggestion. “That’s quite wrong… and gross too… for us to, you know…”

“It is damn gross if we are both stallions because we would look like homosexuals. With me being a mare, there’s nothing wrong, just pretend I am Cadence, alright? It only takes you a minute. It’s not like it’s prostitution… Okay it kinda is… But if you wanna get out of here, just listen to me and do your part. I wouldn’t mind if you wish to stay here until the day you die.”

“Fine. Just for once.” He grunted.

Eclipse smirked upon Shining Armor’s reaction. He turned to look at the 2 guards sitting there at the opposite side of the room. The two was drinking something, whatever that is. Since the two stallions locked in the cell didn’t request anything, the guards didn’t really cared what the two were doing in the cell and just chat with his buddy.

“Ahem.” Eclipse purposely cleared his throat, just to catch the guards’ attention.

“What do you need?” A guard turned his head to look towards the cell as Eclipse stood up. They also have night vision, due to Nightmare Moon’s blessing for her subjects, so the guards can see the two stallion well in the darkness.

“Can I cast a alternation spell?” Eclipse asked.

“What kind of spell?”

“Gender bending.”

“What? Why?” He was quite confused of Eclipse’s odd request, he thought it would be some random telekinesis or equilibrium or entropy nonsense.

“You know, as the Prince of the Shadow Realm, I have control over lots of spell that mortals would never even dream of learning. Being locked up here for this long is getting quite… lonely. You see, me and my comrade just want to have a little… fun. I assume that is a valid request?”

“I’m sorry, that’s a no-“

“You can join us. I know you are rejecting in your words, but deep in your heart, you desperately wanted to… liberate your boredom and loneliness being assigned to just stare at us all day. It’s a request, as I supposed that you are supposed to grant me the request as Her Majesty had ordered you to do? You wouldn’t dare to violate her orders now, would you?”

“He’s not wrong…” The guard blushed, as Eclipse had exposed his inner voice.

“So that’s a yes, I suppose?”

“Yeah, go on. I’m pretty sure Her Majesty wouldn’t mind if we are just… fulfilling his request like we are told to do so, right?” He responded with an embarrassed ‘Hah’.

With the guard’s ‘approval’ , he casted the spell on himself. Within a second, his body glowed slightly. Since he was wearing his usual Wonderbolt’s uniform, not much change of the body could be observed by them under the clothes’ cover.

However, his face had shifted a little, with a little pointy nose and a cute appearance that would make stallions even with toughest will fall to their knees and admire the look on her face. Her mane had lengthened like a mare. With that done, she is now Nova Shade, the female form of Eclipse.

Shining Armor played his role and slowly moved his body nearer to Nova Shade, with his face awkwardly near Eclipse’s. He could only imagine how red his face was then. Eclipse could feel Shining Armor’s warm breathe gently blowing on her face, and the two looked into each other’s eye. That should be enough to fool the guards. Shining Armor tried to resist and look away from Nova Shade’s lustful eyes.

The guards stood up from their seat and set down their helmets and their swords. The two guards approached the cell and promptly opened the cell door with keys and entered the cell with a grin on their faces. The two started to undo the straps on their armour and set it down next to them.

After the two had their burden set down, with only their bare and unarmed bodies, the two slowly approached the mare lying on the ground. One kneeled down and tried to kiss the mare. Nova Shade lifted a hoof , touching his lips with a mischievous smile, stopping the stallion from moving down towards her.

She counted softly, “3, 2, 1.”

As she counted to 1, Shining Armor suddenly bashed one of the guard and knocked him onto the ground by surprise. Eclipse grabbed the stallion’s head with another hoof and smacked the stallion on the floor. She rolled over and with a powerful tug onto his neck, suffocated him and ended the stallion’s life. Shining Armor was strangling the defenceless stallion who was pinned to the floor and could barely breathe and fight back. Eclipse got back up with a roll and kicked the stallion right in the head, snapping his airway.

“Phew, that was easy.” She chuckled.

“Nice one, Eclipse.”

“Call me Nova Shade when I’m a mare.”

“Whatever, Eclipse, Nova Shade, same thing. You did this before?”

“Not really, this is actually my first time trying this spell out. I just improvised it.”

“Heh. Did you enjoy that? He seemed to be mesmerised with you.” Shining Armor teased.

“Wouldn’t lie, I kinda did, perhaps I should do this more often.” She giggled.

“Yeah, very funny. Let’s just get outta here before anyone notice what happened here. And change back to a stallion please, I can’t bare to look into your lustful eyes anymore. That was damn weird.”

“I actually wanna try to fight as a mare, but I guess you are right. I feel safer being a stallion.” He used the spell again and turned back into the Eclipse like how he used to be. He wrapped the two bodies under the blankets and locked the gate to buy themselves some time, even if someone were to come in and check the cells.

“Do you see our gear around?” Eclipse asked, as he observed around.

Shining Armor went to search around the room with his limited vision, but he ended up finding nothing but those guards’ weapons and equipments. Their gears that were stripped away from that day was gone.

“So what now?”

“Just pretend to be one of them with their gear and stay to the shadows. We can find a way to get out of here.”

“Alright. I’m not that kind of sneaky, hidden build of a soldier but I guess I have no choice either.”

The two stallions put on the armor the two guards left in the cell and hid their bodies under the blankets. With an extra layer of clothing underneath the armour, Eclipse’s armor felt quite tight, but it was still acceptable.

They picked their weapons the guards left in the room. Eclipse picked up an obsolete M1 Garand rifle and attached a combat knife on the barrel to use as a bayonet, which was held onto the gun with 2 zip ties found in the room. Shining Armor chose a spear since that was what he was most familiar with using in battle.

“If I have to guess, our stuff would be in a safe, or an armoury. There would be no reason for Nightmare Moon to keep those things near her at all times.” He suggested as the two walked out of room which they were once locked in. Eclipse checked the two sides of the the corridor from the room. The left side was where he entered the room, and the right leads to some places else within the castle. Shining Armor couldn’t see much under the dim moonlight shining inside the underground compartment, he just followed closely right behind Eclipse as he led the way.

Since they didn’t see anyone or anything from their way in, they decided to search the other way into the abandoned castle. There were more soldiers patrolling around the castle, which they didn’t see any at all at the time they came. The defence in the castle was strengthened drastically within one week.

They kept their vision straight and walked along vigilantly. Most guards didn’t cared to even look at them since they were wearing the same armour as the guards and just assumed they were just another random guards patrolling around the compound.

As they walked, they followed a guard into the armoury. It was fairly empty, with only a few melee weapons and 3 rifles on the racks. They were fortunate that they found that their stuff were just left lying on the table. Eclipse sneaked up on the guards and took him by surprise with a knife to his throat.

The guards dropped dead, and Eclipse stuffed the dead body into a chest to hide it. The two rearmed themselves with their gears that they were most familiar with. Eclipse was glad that his precious rifle is back, and now he could fight again effectively. Shining Armor got his spear and tied his sword on his waist again. He also mentally readied himself as well with a few deep breathes. The golden armour of his shined upon the white moonlight that came from the small window that allowed light to come through. It was snowing as they got out of there as white flakes slowly landed onto the ground outside.

Eclipse also found his phone, which he was able to connect to someone. He decided to call Lightningbolt, as she was in charge of the Sentinel Task Force.

“Hey, Bolt. You hear me?”

“Eclipse? You’re alive, thank Celestia. Are you alright there?”

“No time for chit chat. There is no way for me and Shining Armor to walk out of here alive without any assistance due to the heavy resistance in here. Get some troops over here and help. You stay behind, I don’t want you to get hurt by the strong dark magic here.”

“I’ll notify your brother. I’ll get some of the Sentinels and Grand to come over and help., Estimated time of arrival 10 minutes, just hang on there.”

She dropped the call to send reinforcements towards the castle. Eclipse passed the M1 Garand to Shining Armor along with all the spare ammunitions he could scavenge in the room. He also passed him a flashlight just so he could look around clearly.

“Take this. Works just like a spear, you can stab and cut with the blade, but it can also shoot bastards from far away where you can’t reach in melee range. Gonna be useful to fight our way out.”

Shining Armor took the rifle and thanked his partner. Now they waited in the room. As soon as reinforcements arrived, they will fight their way out to rendezvous with the team. The two stayed in the armoury, until they hear soldiers started to gather up and Eclipse could feel the dark magic getting tense.

“Hey, the dark magic here should be intolerable for common Equestrian ponies. How are you not sick?”

“Blessings of the Nightmare, my friend. She knew I am important to her in her endeavour of taking over Equestria, so I wasn’t sick the entire time we’re here, but I don’t know why won’t she grant me night vision as well.”

“Whatever, just get ready.”

As they waited, Eclipse could hear that the soldiers were piled up outside the door. Eclipse turned to ready his wing and placed his rifle on the wing as support, while Shining Armor took aim. The two flipped a cabinet over on the floor for extra cover, in case those bastards carried guns.

“Ready?”

“Ready when you are.”

The two nodded at each other. Eclipse tossed a frag grenade right at the door just before the enemies came in. As the soldiers busted into the room, the frags from the explosion took down quite a few of them. The two started to fire fiercely at the incoming forces. Their armour was bullet-proof, and they found themselves busy reloading their rifles since Eclipse’s rifle only holds 10 rounds per clip, and only 8 rounds for Shining Armor. And with no actual training with firearms, Shining Armor found himself missing shots more that hits, even in such close range.

Eclipse was taking his aim quite well with high accuracy to the flesh. Since they had their vital organs protected, he could only put rounds on their limbs to disable them first, and then finish them off with a fatal shot right in their faces.

“Lightningbolt to Eclipse, reinforcements have arrived, we’ll cover you! Just head out!”

After the soldiers attacking them had fallen, the two started to move out towards the outside of the castle from where they came in. As they exited the underground compound, they met a lot of enemy resistance. The two stallions fought hard to neutralise them as Eclipse sniped those who charged towards them and Shining Armor took point and battled the infantries with melee. After stepping out the indoor area of the castle, they met the Sentinels, Granite, Bolt and Shadestep who arrived to assault and support the two to break out.

Shadestep flew over and tosses the Sword of the Burnt Secrets to Eclipse.

“But wait, how did you…”

“Teleportation brother. Simple as that, now less talking, more fighting!”

Eclipse started to shoot at the waves of soldiers rushing towards them. One shot, one kill. The Luna Guards were falling one by one as the team attacked them.

“Eclipse, my darling, it’s so good to see you! I was so scared that you were dead!” Bolt approached Eclipse as she shot arrows towards the soldiers. She gave her lover a tight hug as she approached him. A drop of tear slowly slid down her face as she did so. She was at cloud nine to see her lover was alive and untouched.

“Me too, dear. I missed you. So much.” Eclipse gave the mare a gentle kiss as he continued firing at the enemies.

As they defeated the soldiers, the Nightmare appeared with a cloud of smoke and flames. Nightmare Moon slowly stepped forward the team with her wings stretched and evil laughter, with shots of lightnings shooting down to the ground as she walked to the front to face the team. Classic villain intro.

The team seized fire as Lightningbolt raised a hoof. Eclipse and Shadestep stood up and walked forward, facing against the Mare of the Nightmare and the two sides stared at each other.

“Ahh, the King and the Prince. I suppose you two can learn a thing or two about nightmares and dark magic.”

“I would surely be pleased to learn something new.” Eclipse replied.

“I told you to send my sister, where is she?”

“She sent us. If you wanna challenge her, kill us all first.”

“You two. Shame of the Darkness. How does one that possess with dark magic become slaves of my sister mindlessly under her daft ruling?”

“You do not understand Princess. Your previous evil mind had been purged and locked away, but something brings it back. It is you, that can control yourself and make use of your own power.”

“I laugh to your stupidity, Prince Eclipse. You could have used the power to take over this world, but you didn’t.”

“We own a Realm and live peacefully with Equestria. And in the civil war, we are supposed to stay strong together as a nation to defend our homeland, not to turn the other way and cause even more chaos!”

She looked really angry, and Eclipse knew he might have screwed up the negotiation, so Plan A was a failure. She flew up into the air and started to shoot magic beams towards the team on the ground, and all the teammate that had wings responded to Lightningbolt’s command and all took off immediately to counter her attack. Time for Plan B, the fight.

Eclipse ditched his M14 rifle and passed it to Shining Armor, and he switched to the Sword of the Burnt Secrets his brother gave him. He flew near her and swung his sword towards her, staggering the mare in the air. He wasn’t trying to hurt the mare, but to weaken her strength until she yields. The 2 kinds of dark magic, holy and evil, collide and sparked with burst of flame and smoke. Bolt shot her arrows at the mare’s mane, Granite sniped the mare with his magnum revolver, and the ground forces tried to shoot the mare, but mostly ceased fire to avoid friendly fire. The ponies and griffon in the air flew in a pattern as random as possible, so that the mare couldn’t attack all of them at the same time, effectively burning her energy, while wearing down her morale.

The mare was attacking furiously at first, shooting at everyone with magic beams, but her magic that was used for her protective ward aura started to fade away after absorbing so much attack, and she slowed down due to exhaustion. The team had successfully wore her energy down and disabled her. She landed on the floor and kneeled down with her front legs, panting heavily.

She fell, lying on the floor, breathing heavily. Eclipse landed on the ground with a squat and quickly stood back up. He walked up towards Nightmare Moon, and he pointed the sword at the mare. The leg he was holding the sword had a small trail of red fluid running down to his hoof and dripped onto the floor.

“Gods… never… bleed.” Nightmare Moon smirked as she got her words out with a shaky and trembling voice. She raised her head to look at Eclipse with the sword in his hoof pointing at her, and droplets of blood running down the blade from his front limb. She felt weakened and shattered, and her mind was flushed with dark magic. Eclipse could sense the mare’s dark magic force started to slowly fade away and decreased.

“If we don’t end this war…” Eclipse started.

“This war will end us…” Nightmare Moon muttered. She felt like her real sense as a loving and caring Princess of the Night had slowly restored. She lied there, staring blankly at Eclipse as her mind was running crazy fast as memories flashed.

“We all have a monster inside of us, some obvious, some not. The monster is a second power within ourselves, capable of utter destruction if we only follow our own voices. Learn to control the monster inside you is like getting an ally, utilise the power and make yourselves more powerful from your dark power.” Eclipse said to the mare, with a genuine warm and kind tone.

“We’ve been there, Princess. We have experienced this. We could make it, and so you will, as long as you try.” Shadestep also persuaded.

She cried, full of sorrow and regret. Eclipse sheathed his blade and reached his hoof out to help the mare get back up on her hooves again. Her dark magic faded completely, and returned to the Princess Luna everyone in this land love and respect.

The team assisted Luna to return to Canterlot. Meanwhile, Eclipse met a few of the Sentinels that joined the fight today. One of the team member looked familiar in Eclipse’s vision.

“Hey you! Wait you are… that Bartender in the West!” Eclipse called out to the mare.

She turned around, to see the commander standing there, calling her.

“Oh yes, I am AppleAle. So you are Eclipse, that one stallion that tried to find Colonel Lightningbolt so desperately a few weeks ago! So you really are the commander?” The mare was surprised to see a familiar face here.

“Yes he is. And now, we love each other, very much.” Lightningbolt joined the conversation.

“So you are also a Sentinel?” Eclipse asked.

“Yes, sir. I live my life as a bartender at the West and I am a Sentinel of the Task Force under Princess Celestia’s service and the command of the Colonel. My special perk is medication and I used to receive military training as a medic in the battlefield. I joined a few previous mission as a specialist medic but once I was injured pretty badly in the battlefield. I was discharged to recover from my wounds, but Her Highness recruited me to be a Sentinel due to my brilliant service record, which I was honoured to accept.”

“Nice to meet you then, AppleAle. I hope I don’t need to see you on the field being very busy, and I hope I don’t need to see you while I’m bleeding on the ground helplessly.”

All three giggled. They looked at their watches, noticed that it was already 6am. As Luna finally set down the moon, warmth and sunlight returned along with hope and faith. The team returned from this place back to Canterlot to report back to Princess Celestia and prepare for their next operation. Eclipse was the last to prepare to leave that place.

“Shade?” He called his brother, who was still staying behind with Eclipse.

“What is it?”

“Since when have you become King?”

“Umm…What?”

“Nightmare Moon said it, ‘the King and the Prince.’”

“I was never King…” He awkwardly explained.

“Come on, Shade. You know you can’t lie to me. I know you too well.”

“Oh, alright then… Since King Sombra was defeated, we are the three rightful descendants and inheritors of his power. I am the oldest and the most powerful among the three of us, so I was rightfully titled as King the moment I was summoned. I just claimed that I’m Prince, just because we three owns the Realm together.”

“Ahh I see. All hail the King of Shadow Realm!” He jokingly saluted to his brother.

“All hail the King of Shadow Realm, Your Majesty!” Lightningbolt followed, with a little giggle.

Shadestep couldn’t help but smirk as the two saluted.

“We’re still brothers, and we shall rule this land hoof in hoof.”

“What is better ? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort ?”

Chapter 8 - Failing Defences

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.

Chapter 9 - Sins of the Father

The three brothers woke up first, as they see the castle now quiet and enemies were gone. The rest of the team slowly eventually recovered from the blast and got back up again, only to see that the enemies were gone. The castle was once again quiet.

Malachite looked around, and he saw the three brothers standing around King Sombra’s horn.

“What was that…”

“The final weapon was unleashed. They should be gone now.” Shadestep said as he put on an eyepatch to cover the hollow eye cavity as his eyeball was pulled out after Lightningbolt’s friendly firing incident.

“Finally!” He screamed in excitement. All of them couldn’t help but express their greatest euphoria they had ever have in their life.

“Now, all we had to do is to contain the power back into the horn, and send them back to the void.” Shadestep said, as he once again performed a spell, but a reverse spell. Not to unleash the powers, but to claim it back.

Everyone witnessed as he performed the ritual. They were hoping to see something getting sucked back into the horn, but there wasn’t anything thing to see for a good 10 minutes.

“Oh no…” Shadestep muttered.

“What is it?” Eclipse asked nervously. He had never seen his brother this anxious and unconfident about himself before.

“I can’t seem to… call the power back in…” He grunted as he continued trying and trying again.

“You what?!” Eclipse screamed.

“I said I can’t contain the power!” Shadestep yelled back.

“Bloody hell… What are we supposed to do now?”

Princess Celestia stepped up towards Shadestep, looking very worried about the situation.

“Excuse me, King Shadestep, so what is the situation now?”

“You see, the power is unpredictable and unstable in general, and now I somehow couldn’t contain the power. If the power is left unsolved, who know what kind of damage it may cause if it goes rogue.”

“So, how are we suppose to solve the problem?”

“There is a way, but I’m not sure if anyone of us are powerful enough to deal with this on our own, not even you or me, Princess.”

“Whatever, as long as it can seal the power away, it’s worth a try.”

“Yeah! We’ve not come this far to be defeated by our own backfired plan.” The rest started as they heard the conversation.

“Alright, alright. It is pretty similar to the battle when King Sombra was destroyed. We will need all of our combined power, along with the enemies and their respective leader’s own special power, to bust through the heavy resistance of the Shadow Powers. Our objective is to find a path to a portal that might occur anywhere at anytime that leads straight to the spiritual realm. It can only fit one individual through, and almost all of the holy powers of Equestria cannot go through.”

“Once inside, it’s the matter of finding the source of the power, destroy it or seal it away. Since only dark magic users can grant access inside through the crooked and twisted portal, it means neither Princess Celestia or Princess Luna could go through. It’s up to me, Eclipse or Lunar.”

“The main issue is that, neither of us is powerful enough to fight the enormous power of the Ancient power of the Shadows. We would at least require King Sombra’s level of magic to even come close of making a draw.”

“But King Sombra was destroyed.” Shining Armor asked.

“That’s the problem. And even if he were alive right now, I highly doubt that he will fight on our side. Nevermind, we’ll figure this out sooner or later. I recommend sending troops to unite all of the enemy leaders first, as to gather all the unique powers of Equestria.”

“How about the griffons? Krossair and Granite are dead, and they were the only legal inheritor of the Griffonstone Empire and the Power of Griffons.” Malachite asked.

“You are the inheritor, Malachite! Granite’s legacy is all yours to take control of!” Eclipse responded.

“Me? What? He was being serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking? A hero’s last words are the most valuable. He said you are the King now, so you are taking the responsibility!”

“Fine. I’ll gather some troops to negotiate with those changelings and the dragons.”

“Lieutenant Lannister, you lead the rest of the Wonderbolts to assist Malachite! Remember, no killing! We need the two enemy leaders alive!”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The two stepped out of the castle with some soldiers and took off. The rest that stayed could only hope for the best as they waited for their update.

As for the remaining generals left in the castle, they. were responsible for the second half of the operation.

“As for the crisis of Lord Tirek, me, my sister and Cadence transferred our respective alicorn powers to Twilight Sparkles for her to fight him off. I think we can apply this to the situation right now. If we combine all three brother’s power onto one, we could achieve greater power on one individual.”

“It is a great idea, Princess. However, it is easier said than done if we were to combine the power of us three on one, since our power are inseparable. Unlike you alicorns, the formation of us three are from one single source - King Sombra’s remains. Our power were supposed to be evenly shared by us three, but ended up in an unbalanced share, with me wielding more power than Eclipse, and Eclipse having more power than Lunar. If we were to combine our power, it would mean killing two of the brothers.”

“I don’t mind sacrificing myself for the nation, if it can save us all.” Eclipse said, determined.

“No, Eclipse! Don’t leave me! Don’t die, please…” Lightningbolt pleaded upon hearing Eclipse’s words. They had come all this way to be together, and she would never allow fate to separate the couple.

“There is a way to keep the two alive… But it is still very risky. One wrong move and they would demise forever. It will be dangerous, but it’s the only way to preserve the lives of the two brothers while infusing the three brothers’ power into one.”

“Go on. I will do anything, as long as we can contain the powers and restore harmony to the land.”

“The two will still need to die, but not completely. Their souls will need to be combined with the one that stays alive. However, their bodies will not be completely dead and empty. It would mean keeping the body just barely alive while the powers fuses together. Then it would be a race against time, as the bodies will not stay alive forever without their actual soul inside. Finish the deal quickly, and pull their souls back into their body. One wrong move, and the soul will completely detach from the body or get corrupted, which would both result in death.”

“It’s worth a try, but who will be responsible to carry the power of the three?”

“I would say Shadestep. He’s the oldest and the most powerful. He has the greatest control over dark magic.” Eclipse suggested.

“I would say the same, for our big brother is the most capable.” Lunar agreed.

“Then that’s decided. We’ll do it once we are ready to strike. We’ll also need to figure out which way to ‘die’ is the most suitable, since we cannot physically hurt the body.”

“Either anaesthesia or suffocation would be best, since it wouldn’t damage the body much.” AppleAle suggested from the crowd. Being the medic of the Sentinels she knows about death more than anyone else there.

“Then we can use anaesthesia then. One shot to the heart to paralyse the heart and we’ll be ‘dead’.”

“Final problem, where is the portal?” Eclipse asked.

“Mostly random, but I think I can calculate according to its pattern. If we strike before tomorrow, it would be somewhere near the south of Equestria. Not the easiest path, but there’s no second option.” Shadestep responded.

*************************************************************************************
Around an hour later, Malachite and Lannister returned to the castle. A dragon and a changeling followed the two as they entered the castle.

“Princess Ember. Queen Chrysalis. Well met.” Princess Celestia greeted the two enemy leaders.

“Now, I’m tired of getting blasted away by your love magic, Shining Armor and Princess Cadence.” The bug queen responded, emphasising the two names with a sarcastic tone.

“No, we’re not going to blast you away. It’s an alliance, and we are being very sincere and serious. I know we might have our differences, many of our respective races died, but it’s not the time to blame each other. Those dark magic monstrosity are now roaming outside, going rogue any second now. If we don’t help each other, we will all go down.”

“Fine. Just for my subjects.”

“Fine by me, as long as I don’t receive more negative comments of my subjects by you ponies.” The blue armoured dragon that stabbed Granite
replied.

“Yeah, said so the one that killed Granite.” Malachite complained.

“Malachite!”

“Fine…”

“So now, if everyone is ready, we will kick this off.” Shadestep asked.

Everyone nodded. Princess Ember, the Empress of the dragon race equipped her helmet while the rest armed themselves, ready to protect Shadestep to the portal.

AppleAle prepared two syringes full of anaesthesia fluids, while Eclipse and Lunar laid down. Everyone was surrounding the two, watching intensely and held their breathe. Lightningbolt grabbed Eclipse’s hoof as she stayed next to him.

“Don’t leave me… Please, make it back…”

“I will, Bolt. I promise.”

“Son, I await good news.” Windspear saluted. He envied Eclipse’s courage.

“Roger that old man.”

With their probably final goodbyes said to the two, AppleAle pushed the syringes onto the two’s chests. And with another push, the fluids went inside their heart. Eclipse stared at Bolt as he felt the cold fluid flowed into his heart, and his started to slowly lose consciousness. Shadestep casted a spell to stop the two’s soul from completely draining into his body.

“Alright, time is money. We have to move, now.” Shadestep ordered once the process is done.

“Move out!” Malachite yelled as he turned towards the door.

“Bolt! We have to move!” Shadestep called out.

“Just go, little filly. I’ll take care of him.” Windspear said.

Although very unwilling, she finally left with the team. She kept on looking back at her stallion as they moved out. Fortunately, all of them knew how to fly, so all of them took off and proceeded towards their objective at the south.

The skies looked clear as they proceeded, but Shadestep knew best that it was only a hallucination. Sooner or Later, they will encounter the spectral entities and it would be a tough fight.

Lightningbolt stayed right next to Shadestep for the entire time, since she knew that part of her lover is now in the body of his brother. As they approached the Southern Borders of Equestria, they could see a dark mist surrounding them, neon blue spectral soldiers appeared as they neared the border. The mist was very thick and dense, which in turn reduced their lift and they were all forced to land.

Since the portal was emitting dark magic, Shadestep could sense where the portal was exactly, since he had very strong dark power. The team battled through the spectral soldiers to proceed forward. Since they couldn’t be hurt physically, all they could do was to move fast and either protect themselves with a shield or use magic against them.

It was very difficult to move inside the misty area, since it was like a furious sandstorm that resisted and limited their speed.

With great effort, they moved forward to the portal. It was a purplish red frame of unknown entity. The mist near the portal was the most dense comparing to the surrounding area. Shadestep dove right into the portal with no hesitation, and the team stayed behind. Right as he jumped in, the think mist was gone and the portal was shut. The spectral entities disappeared with the portal as well.

“Let’s head back to Canterlot. This is what we can do for now. The rest is now determined by Shadestep.” Lightningbolt suggested.

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

Over at the spiritual realm, Shadestep landed in a forest. They skies were like a cloud of star dust in the galaxy, with the clouds and mist constantly moving. It looked just like the normal world, but more solemn and peaceful, at least for that moment.

Shadestep could feel his soul being split apart, and his brothers appeared as a spirit and spectral entity in the realm.

“Woah… This place is… stunning. So I am supposed to be… dead, right?” Eclipse asked as he looked around.

“Whatever it is, we need to stop the spirit from infesting its power by feeding on souls.”

The three proceeded, and they could see a massive architecture at the far end of a canyon. On their way, they could see those they had slaughtered in the war. They all tried to say something.

“Watch where you are going. Those monsters, they will eat you!”

“Shouldn’t have joined the war, now I’m dead and stranded here, alone.”

“I fear no one, but that thing, it scares me.”

“This is almost like Tantabus… only less empty and more plants.”

As they approached the edge of the canyons, they could see a bridge, made of bones, hanging across the canyon. Under the canyon was an abyss, while the souls that defiled the laws of the world were punished and pushed down to the nothingness.

They walked up towards the bridge, only to be stopped by an entity. He was wearing some heavy armour, and was wielding a hammer with both of his hooves. He appeared to be an alicorn, that guards the entrance to the palace-like architecture on the other side.

“Halt. Only the spirits that are qualified to enter can pass through. And no mortals allowed in this place.” The spirit started.

“I’m no mortal, and I’m very sure all three of us are qualified to enter.” Shadestep started.

“I am Kugelblitz, the alicorn of justice and qualifications. I am responsible of guarding the entrance to the Hall of Eternity. Identify yourself, and I might let you enter.” The entity replied.

“I am King Shadestep the Powerful, the rightful inheritor of the Shadow Realm. I am here to seal the invading Ancient Power of the Shadows.”

“I am Prince Eclipse, Captain of the Equestria Royal Air Force Wonderbolts, and the second-in-charge of the Shadow Realm. I followed my brother.”

“I-uh… I am Lunar, I just followed my brothers to come here…”

“Fine. I will make an exception here. Those who wished to combat the Ancient Power were all inside the Hall of Eternity. Head over and you can meet them.” Kugelblitz stepped away and let the three brothers to pass through.

Shadestep headed on first, while Eclipse and Lunar followed their brother. The bridge was quite shaky unstable.

“Tread carefully, who knows what would happen if you fall.” Eclipse whispered.

“Be careful, but be fast. I don’t want you two to be stuck in here forever.” Shadestep replied, as they had limited time before Eclipse and Lunar become actually dead.

They made it through the bridge and once again stepped on solid land. They had arrived at the Hall of Eternity, which was enormous. The gate itself was so tall that it appeared to be very heavy and immovable.

However, it was incredibly light as Shadestep pulled the gate open. It was even lighter than a feather, and it felt almost like he was pulling on nothing but thin air.

The three entered the Hall, and were greeted by some ancient heroes of Equestria.

“Welcome to the Hall of Eternity. I am Commander Hurricane, the ancient legendary general that helped founded the nation of Equestria.” A red pegasus in armour said.

“Thank you, commander. We wish to see those who are willing to defend themselves against the invading Power of Shadows.”

“They are gathering up and they are expecting you. Follow me, and we’ll be ready.” He headed to the inner hall while the three brothers followed.

The hall was massive, at least ten times larger than Canterlot. There was a massive grill that serves unlimited food to the heroes inside. It was an unending feast, with the heroes eating and singing all day, living a happy afterlife. The walls are made of gold and platinum, with diamonds embedded onto the corners. The floor was made of all kinds of luxurious materials you could ever imagine.

They arrived to see the warriors that wished to join in the armageddon. Eclipse was surprised to see his late teammates and nemeses.

“Lieutenant Eclipse! Is that you? Are you… KIA?” A pony in Wonderbolts uniform and wields a 12 gauge shotgun approached Eclipse, with a few more pegasi following behind him.

“Sky Striker! Everyone! Alpha Team!” Eclipse was happy to see his late teammates again, and he gave all of them an abrazo.

“I’m not dead, and Equestria’s civil war was won. However, I followed my brother to assist you all here to deal with the aftermath. You know, the invading Shadow Powers.”

“I see. I think Granite would be glad to see you too.”

“But I though he killed you in the mountains? Aren’t you suppose to hate him?”

“We may be nemesis as mortals, but we’re all a family here, in the Hall of Eternity.”

He could see his late partner approached him, while next to him stood a griffon, with fur dark as ebony.

“Granite… Obsidian…” He was almost speechless.

“Eclipse, my dearest partner of the badlands. Thank you for sending me here. I live a life more comfortable and satisfying in here, with my dearest Obsidian.”

“You wouldn’t tell me that Krossair is here as well?”

Granite chuckled.

“I sent him straight to the righteous side of hell, right down that abyss outside. He deserved to pay for his crime of genocide and treason. I was fortunate enough to be forgiven of my crimes due to my service to right the wrong.”

“That’s nice.”

“Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, we wish to combat with you!” The rest of the team started.

“Let’s not waste anytime, then.” Shadestep spoke.

The team marched out towards the opening field on the other side of the canyon by the lead of the three brothers. the team was formed by various races and teams. Ponies, Griffons, Dragons, Vampires… You name it, they had it.

They marched over the bridge in perfectly synchronised steps. Eclipse thought the bridge will start to shake vigorously and might even snap, but not only did the bridge not snap, it seemed to have strengthen and stabilised itself for the marching souls.

“Formation!” Eclipse commanded the team as they approached the other side of the bridge. They did not need words to coordinate themselves, as they lined up in battle formation as if they were already told what to do. Kugelblitz also joined in the battle, and stood with the three brothers.

“Show yourself!” Shadestep yelled towards the cloudy mist in front of them.

“Fool. You are a fool to follow me towards the spiritual realm, son. If you do not obey me, I will end you myself. You have 30 seconds to surrender.” The mist spoke towards the team.

“Ready your weapons!” Eclipse turned around and ordered the team. The team followed and drew their weapons from their sheath.

“What’s with the mist, Shadestep? It seemed to… know you and your brothers.” Kugelblitz asked.

Shadestep smirked. “Sins of the Father.”

“King Sombra, our dearest father. Forgive us for our rebellion, as you had done enough damage to the lands, and we will put you down.”

The mist chuckled.

“My dear sons, you are all like me, hungry for power and fame. Admit it, you wish to dominate the lands with power and might. Enslave those you wish to work for you and kill whoever is in your way.”

“We have overcame our evil nature, father. Face us! I declare war on you, King Sombra the Tyrant!”

“You are not speaking to King Sombra. No, not the King alone. You are talking to all the previous ancestors of the Shadows! You dare to rebel against us?!”

“Bring it on!”

“You wish to seek your own demise, and I shall grant you that wish!”

The mist started to thin out and a stallion stepped up. A stallion with black flowing mane and grey fur appeared in front of the team. He was wearing his armour and his iconic red cape. The well-known tyrant of the Shadows, King Sombra appeared right in front of the team.

“You have a pretty harsh father, Lieutenant.” Sky Striker joked.

“Indeed, Striker.”

King Sombra summoned black souled creatures to guard himself against team. They were wearing masks, with unsettling lime green lights coming out from the gaps of the mask.

“Attack!” Shadestep commanded, and the team charged forward to combat the enemies, just like how they used to do so when they were alive.

Eclipse threw his sword towards Shadestep, which Shadestep caught it skilfully. With some fancy magic, he fused the two weapons into one, the Sword of Domain and Burnt Secrets, or more widely known to the legends as The Black Blade, as it appeared almost completely black and burning purple flames. King Shadestep now wielded the legendary artefact capable of utter destruction if landed onto a villain’s grasp.

The two King’s blades collided as Shadestep charged towards King Sombra with his sword, while the others fired their spiritual firearms. Eclipse and Lunar jumped in to assist their brother as they embedded their powers to the rightful King Shadestep.

“Give up, son. You will never win this…” King Sombra laughed loudly and confidently as he battled his sons.

“I will prove you wrong, King Sombra.”

“You don’t understand it do you? The power of Shadow is always feed by deceptions and betrayal.”

“It is only like that when you keep ruling with absolutism!”

“Eventually, even if you were to defeat me, all of you will be stranded here as your souls eventually detach from your bodies.”

Shadestep could feel himself getting stronger as more and more power was fed to him through the remaining souls from the body. He knew that as he get stronger, his brothers would risk actually ‘dying’ greater and greater.

The rest of the creatures was defeated, leaving just King Sombra fighting his own sons. The team couldn’t do anything but watched the battle go on.

“According to the law of conservation of mass and energy, matter and energy cannot be created out of nothing. Every magic spell, every conjuration, every move he make is just rearranging the energy distributed in the world, which means he will be weakened enough to defeat given the time. Just stop him from acquiring more energy, and he will be down in no time.” Eclipse spoke towards Shadestep’s mind.

Shadestep heard it, and he knew of the best solution. He changed his attack patterns and faced towards the Hall of Eternity. As he started to out power his father, he pushed forward and made King Sombra backed up.

Soon enough, Sombra now had his back faced upon the canyon, with his hooves stepping just right onto the brim of the abyss.

“Ever heard of a blackhole? Nothing escapes the event horizon.” Shadestep taunted, as he had learnt some science and ‘nerdy’ stuff from Eclipse.

“Choose your next words carefully, Shadestep. They may be your last as King.” King Sombra yelled back.

“Deception and Betrayal.” He spoke to himself, as he considered the meaning into the words.

He pointed his Black Blade towards the stallion, and everyone else also pointed their weapon at him following Shadestep’s action.

“You’re mad, son. You are mad. If it wasn’t me, you wouldn’t be here.” Sombra replied.

“Deception and Betrayal, you’ll find plenty of both down there.”

“No one, in Equestria or this world. No one threatens their own father!” Sombra yelled back. Although acting calm and as if everything was under his control, he could sense his doom is near, his true ending.
“You bring tyranny and absolutism to this land, my land.”

“You insulted my brothers.”

“You threatened my subjects with slavery and death!”

“Oh, I have chosen my words very carefully, my dear father. Perhaps you should have done the same, King Sombra.”

“This is patricides. This is madness!” King Sombra roared.

Shadestep slowly lowered his blade and turned his head to look back towards his brothers. They eventually nodded, knowing his plan. The rest
held their weapons on tightly as they surrounded King Sombra.

“Madness?”

“THIS! IS! EQUESTRIA!”

And with a powerful leap and a spin, he bucked King Sombra down into the dark abyss of nothingness, never to be seen again as he fell through towards hell, and eventually get tangled and imprisoned by the hateful spirits down in the righteous side of hell.

They all approached the edge of the abyss and peeked down to the darkness as they witnessed King Sombra’s downfall.

“So, you sure he ain’t coming back?”

“Maybe he will return, maybe after thousand of years, maybe tomorrow, no one knows. The most important is that the Tyrant had received the punishment he deserved, and peace is finally restored to the lands.”

They didn’t want to, but they had to. It was time for them to say goodbye, as even the immortals needed to live on. Shadestep and his brothers readied to return to the mortal coil, as they said goodbye with the spirits in the realm.

“Please, Eclipse. Tell Lannister and my parents that I live a great afterlife here, and they do not need to worry about me anymore.” Sky Striker requested his Captain.

“Please, Eclipse. Tell Malachite that he is in charge of the Empire now, and he should do all he could to keep the subject’s well-being.” Granite requested.

“Please, Eclipse. Help us to say our late goodbyes to Captain Windspear.” The Alpha Team requested.
“No need to say goodbye to me anymore.” A figure landed onto the lands of the spiritual realm, in front of the Alpha Team’s spirits.

“Alpha Team, attention!” Sky Striker shouted.

The team stood straight and saluted, as the old veteran appeared in front of the team.

“We welcome you home, Captain Aviator Windspear.” The team greeted the Captain.
“Captain… Are you…”

“Eclipse, son. I’m sorry I didn’t make it before you return to the mortal realm. The rest of the generals back there are expecting you three. Head on back, you’ve done a great job of leading this unit, which I am glad. When your time runs out one day, we will welcome you to join in the feast in heaven once again, but for the time being, you still have your life to live on. Lightningbolt is a good mare, don’t leave her waiting.”

“Captain…I… Roger that.” Eclipse sobbed, as he knew when he return to the mortal realm, his mentor will not make it for his wedding.

“But before you go, Eclipse,” Windspear said, “Take my remains to be placed with the rest of Alpha Team.”

“I will make sure it happens, sir.”
“Hey! Are you gonna return or stay here forever?” Shadestep’s yell interrupted his farewell with his captain, reminding that he was running out of time.

“See you later, Alpha Team.”

“See you later, Eclipse.” The team saluted with Windspear as Eclipse followed his brothers to return to the mortal coil.

With that, the three brothers’ vision went completely bright white as their souls returned to the mortal realm once again. Shadestep simply reappeared in the Canterlot castle in front of everyone.

The soul of Eclipse and Lunar was once again placed into their respective bodies. Lunar woke up first, as he felt like he had been resurrected from his death, which was exactly what happened, ironically. It was a strange feeling, as it was like getting born from a mother’s womb all over again, but only the senses, not the actual scene.

Eclipse didn’t wake up for another 5 minutes after Lunar, which everyone was very concerned that he might be stuck in the spiritual realm forever.

Despite of everyone’s greatest fear, he did manage to wake up again. He gently opened his eyes. Under his blurry vision and numbing sensations, he could see the white mare with pink mane looking into his eyes passionately, her hooves holding onto his.

“Lightningbolt… My dearest mare… I’m back.” He stood back up as his full sense as a stallion, awake and alive, returns to his body. He hugged her tight within his embrace, and kissed the mare on the lips as passionately as her stare.

Everyone around him jumped and cheered in happiness, as the war was won, and peace was finally restored.

“Not so fast, everyone. We still have a big mess to clean.” Eclipse started.

“By the way, Windspear?” He asked purposely, although he knew the answer.

“He… he didn’t make it before you return…” AppleAle responded with a depressed tone.

“I know… I saw his spirit in the spiritual realm before I left. Don’t worry about him, he is now reunited with the Alpha Team in a better place now. Granite is with Obsidian now, living in a big palace happily together. And The Tyrant is no more, as he was banished to the abyss of hell to be tried for his sins.”

It was a glorious day for Equestria, for it was the victory of the civil war, and all races in the lands were united all as one, with their previous sins forgiven. Everyone held their hooves and claws together, to set off to rebuild the lands that they had once destroyed.

Author's Note

The civil war is won! (#300Reference)

Epilogue coming up.

Epilogue - Return of the Harmony

A whole year had passed since the victory of the civil war, 2nd January, Year 15, Second Celestial Era. The citizens had returned to their original homeland. Although being destroyed and burnt to the ground, they kept being optimistic, as a bright future lied ahead of them.

The lands of Equestria had now been restored, and the races had now been officially united as one. The Griffonstone Empire had recognised itself as part of Equestria, and the new Emperor, King Malachite the Brave had established a propaganda of peace and unification.

As for the dragon race, they had finally allowed open trade and communication with Equestria, building railroads and turned the reddish, burning rocks into an actually habitable place for all the races.

The crooked changelings, however, still had trouble accepting the fact that their plan of ultranationalism had failed for the third time. Queen Chrysalis lived a great life with the rest of the Empresses of Equestria, while taking care of her own subjects.

The economy system had been completely destroyed in the civil war, but it eventually started to recover, as industries and cultivations had started to thrive again, just like how it was before the war had begun.

With the society back on track, Eclipse could finally make decisions about his own life. He remembered his vow - to be with Lightningbolt forever. He decided that now is the time to get married with the mare he had always loved.

He still had problem deciding where should his wedding be held, Canterlot or Shadow Realm. As the hero of Equestria and the Prince of Shadow Realm, his wedding would be grand, inviting everyone of every race to attend.

Decision was made as everyone suggested it would be best for the wedding to be held in Canterlot, as it was the most convenient place in Equestria for anyone to attend.

The best singers and performers were invited to perform, the best fashion designers were gathered to made the most eye-catching attire for the Captain and the Colonel, and the best chefs were hired to cook the best food and dessert for the event.

It would be a big event, as it was not only his wedding, but his inauguration as the Captain of the Wonderbolts and the first memorial anniversary of the victory of the civil war. It was such a massive event that the entire nation of Equestria was issued a week-long official public holiday just for the event.

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

“Are you that nervous already now, my brother? You look calmer on the battlefield than your own wedding.” Lunar teased as he helped his brother dressed up for the event.

“Yeah, I won’t lie. I am quite nervous now. You know, I’m not particularly good at anything except flying and shooting.” Eclipse chuckled, a little embarrassed.

“Chill, Your Royal Highness. Everything would be alright. Come on, check yourself out. You look just magnificent!”

Eclipse walked in front of a tall mirror as he looked at himself through the mirror. He was in a full set of white attire and a pair of white leather boots, with aiguillettes crossing his chest from his shoulder. Three shiny golden badges hanging from his chest as awards of his services in the war. His mane was made to look more handsome, as it was much tidier than his normal day outlook.

He buttoned up the gold plated buttons on his coat with his hooves and applied a little perfume. He looked up at the mannequins, wondering wether he should wear a crown or a Captain’s cap.

Lunar picked up the crown and placed it on Eclipse’s head, making the decision for him. He attached his sword on his waist and stepped out from the changing room. With his two brothers by his side, he walked towards the hall of the castle.

The doors were opened as he approached the hall, and from there he could see his mare starting at the very end of the hall, up the stage. Lots of fillies and colts stood by the side of a red carpet that led him up the stage.

Some were Royal Guards, standing straight with swords in their sheath and a whole set of armour, polished so bright that as if it actually glows a silver light. Some were Wonderbolts, standing adjacent to the Royal Guards in their format attire and wings stretched confidently in the air. A black and white cap, a set of well-ironed uniform as blue as the skies, and a pair of white leather shoes. They all stood aside with their rifles, not the ones they use in the battlefield, but the ones in galas.

The organ was played as Eclipse entered, approaching the stage. The blades were unsheathed by the Guards and the rifles were raised to form an arc as Eclipse passed through.

On the stage, Princess Celestia was the priest, and Lightningbolt stood with her sister Dasher as the bride maid. Lightningbolt was in a set of wedding dress that looked as if it was made of snow flakes. Her mane was also tidied, and lied around on her neck.

The stallion stepped up onto the stage.

“Lightningbolt… You are so pretty…” Eclipse complimented.

“You looked very handsome, Eclipse.” Lightningbolt giggled, and she complimented back too.

“From now on, you’re my princess, forever and beyond.”

“So, shall we begin?” Princess Celestia asked, as the two were finally here.

The two nodded in response, and held their hooves together, as Celestia started to speak.

“We gather here to unite these two ponies in marriage. Their decision to marry has not been entered into lightly and today they publicly declare their private devotion to each other. The essence of this commitment is the acceptance of each other in entirety, as lover, companion, and friend. A good and balanced relationship is one in which neither pony is overpowered nor absorbed by the other, one in which neither pony is possessive of the other, one in which both give their love freely and without jealousy. Marriage, ideally, is a sharing of responsibilities, hopes, and dreams. It takes a special effort to grow together, survive hard times, and be loving and unselfish.”

“Do you both pledge to share your lives openly with one another, and to speak the truth in love? Do you promise to honour and tenderly care for one another, cherish and encourage each other, stand together, through sorrows and joys, hardships and triumphs for all the days of your lives?”

“We do.” Eclipse and Lightningbolt replied.

“Do you pledge to share your love and the joys of your marriage with all those around you, so that they may learn from your love and be encouraged to grow in their own lives?”

“We do.”

“May these rings be blessed as a symbol of your union. As often as either of you look upon these rings, may you not only be reminded of this moment, but also of the vows you have made and the strength of your commitment to each other.”

Two gold rings were placed on a stand in front of the couple, with extremely detailed carvings and finished with a flawless diamond on each ring.

“Lightningbolt, please repeat after me ... I Lightningbolt, promise to love and support you Eclipse and live each day with kindness, understanding, truth, humour, and passion. With this ring I thee wed.”

Lightningbolt repeated the vow, and she took one of the rings from the stand with her magic. She pulled Eclipse’s mechanical wing over with her hood, and fitted it into a gap Eclipse cut away in advance just for this occasion. The ring slipped into the gap easily, and now fitted snugly onto the wing.

With the ring fitted onto Eclipse, Celestia continued.

“Eclipse, please repeat after me ... I Eclipse, promise to love and support you Lightningbolt and live each day with kindness, understanding, truth, humour, and passion. With this ring I thee wed.”

Eclipse did the same thing and repeated the vow solemnly. He feared that his dark magic may hurt his mare, so he just physically picked the ring up with the feathers on his real wing, and gently slid the ring down her horn, which also fitted just tight enough to be held in place, and not easily removable.

“Go now in peace and live in love, sharing the most precious gifts you have - the gifts of your lives united. And may your days be long on this earth. I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

With that said, Eclipse pulled Lightningbolt over into his embrace, and the couple’s lips touched. Everyone cheered as the two kissed lovingly. The confetti was dropped, the blank shots were fired, and the fireworks were launched. The two were officially married.

It was a marvellous day. Not only was Eclipse and Lightningbolt married and Bolt became the Princess of the Shadow Realm, Malachite had become King of Griffonstone Empire, Shadestep and Dasher started a relationship…

While the rest of Equestria continued celebrating, Eclipse still had his duties and promises to fulfil. Still in his Prince attire, he travelled to the gate of Canterlot, to move some ‘shipments’.

Two brown wood boxes were lying there under a pavilion, with a flag of Equestria covering one, while a flag of Griffonstone Empire covered another. Being a strong stallion, he loaded the two coffins onto a little bird chopper, which he flew it to the Crystal Mountain range.

He landed on the mountain, somewhere which the coldest winds never blew and the harshest chill never reached. It retained a forever sight of red and orange leafed-trees, with hay and dried grass. It was also so far up the north that it reached the arctic circle of the planet, and the sun would never set at the location.

The place was a graveyard, where the royalty, the heroes and the important ones’ body rest forever. Eclipse unloaded the two coffins and carried it to where the Alpha Team’s remain rested.

“Rest in peace, my Captain.”

“Rest in peace, my partner.”

He saluted, as he stare blankly at the massive graveyard.

Author's Note

So the story is done!

Remember to follow me to see new stories:
Harmony: Service of Lieutenant Eclipse (Story of Eclipse)
Harmony: Rise of the Reign of Terror (Story of Granite)
The Guilds