Author's Note

Sorry that this chapter took a while to come out. I was about halfway through it but I didn't like it so I decided to redo it. There was also school and home that prevented me to work on it as much as I wanted too. Hope you enjoy this chapter and if you see any errors, please point them out and I will fix them as soon as I can. Anyway, enjoy!

The Invasion of Ponyville

The news from the guards shcked everyone in the room. Except me as I'm just confused.

"Um princesses. Who are these 'Arcadia' guys?" I ask with concern in my voice. My question snapped the rest out of their shock and they look at me. The princesses seem to be concerned and reluctant to tell me. Celestia then steps toward me.

"You see Aaron, Arcadia are a savage group of bandits. They have terrorized ponies for years and have stolen thousands of bits and their numbers have made them incredibly strong. They've only attacked small towns and travelers before, never something of this scale." Celestia explains with fear in her voice of what they might be doing Ponyville. This concerns me greatly as I live in Ponyville now so I'm getting angry of what they're doing to my town.

"Then let's go now! Ponyville is in trouble and we need to stop them." I say with a stomp of my foot, making the others agree. Celestia and Luna nods and look at me with serious expressions.

"Aaron, we both need to ask. Can you join the battle and help our guards?" Celestia asks causing me to nod instantly. No ones gonna mess with my town. "Then I need you to go to the carriages and head to Ponyville with our guards and help with the fight." She tells me as she looks to the guard and motions for him to escort me which he salutes to. I walk to him and he walks down the hallway towards what I assumed was the carriages. We arrive and motions me to enter which I do. He enters as well and we start to fly down to Ponyville. It takes about ten minutes to arrive and we stop and land on the outskirts of the town. I leave the carriage and see a small battalion of guards, about 20, and hear fighting coming from the town square. Buildings are burning and there's blood on the street.

"What happened?" I ask to an injured guard who's being healed by a unicorn.

"We were ambushed. Some of them hid in the crowd and jumped the guards. Unicorns then teleported in with earth ponies and pegasi flew in with bows and shot us down. We fought back as hard as we could but we were forced out. A few reinforcements arrived and are fighting them in the town center." He says before coughing, making me thank him and leave for the center of town.

"Sir, where are you going?!" The guard that escorted me said. I looked at him with an emotionless expression.

"I'm going to help." I said before running off, much to the displeasure of the guard. The streets are barren with bits of blood scattered across the street. It takes me two minutes to reach the center where I see about 25 guards fighting ponies dressed in black, make shift armor mainly covering their chests, legs, and arms. The guards are losing ground against the Arcadia members. I decide to run towards the nearest guard and Arcadian (what ill be calling them) and help him with the member as he's getting barraged with a sword. I run up to the Arcadian and punch him right in the cheek which sends him flying away from the guard. He gets up from the floor while holding his cheek in pain as he glares at me.

"What do you think you're doing you freak?!" He yells out at me which gets the attention of other members who are looking on with confusion. I don't respond, instead taking out my sword which puts the injured Arcadian in his guard. He growls at this challenge and runs at me while dragging his sword on the floor. I wait for him to arrive while glaring at him. When he finally arrives, he swings his sword out at me which I easily avoid by tiliting my body. I grab his arm which holds his sword and squeeze hard enough to make him drop his sword from the pain. I then drive my knee into his stomach causing him to bend over it in pain. Letting go of his arm, I grab the back of his mane and pull his face in front of mine and head butt him make my him real back and grab his forehead in pain. I use this to my advantage and run at him swinging my sword which cuts into his stomach and out the back, making a large gash in the side of his stomach his he clutches, desperately trying to stop the blood gushing out of his wound but fails miserably as he falls over and dies from the shock and blood loss. This shocks the guard I saved and the rest of the Arcadians who are all seething in rage at the loss of their comrade.

"You bastard! Who do you think you are coming here and killing one of us?!? I will take your head off those shoulders of yours!" An Arcadian yells out in rage as he runs at me with an axe. When he reaches me, he swings his axe towards my head in an attempt to decapitate me. I see the axe coming for my neck and I simply crouch down to dodge it before lunging at him, piercing his heart with my sword killing him instantly. I push his body off the sword as it falls to the earth with a thud. This makes the Arcadians even angrier as two more ran at me with spears. They had a small gap in between them so they don't trip each other up but this was perfect for me as I used it to slide right through it before turning around and slashing the napes of their necks, killing them both. I hear a battle cry coming from behind me and I turn to see a pegasus holding a short sword running at me trying to back stab me. This fails as I spin around when he arrives and grab his shoulder before shoving my sword through him. I pull my sword out and turn around, glaring at the Arcadian members who are looking at me in anger but there were some that were frozen with fear.

"So who's next?" I ask menacingly which made some flinch but held their composure. One of them seems to be stupid as he runs at me with a sword.

"I'm not scared of you!" He screams as he tries to cleave me in half but fails to do so I block it with my sword. He tries to push down but is failing as I'm stronger than he is. I push against him and make him stagger back. I then slash at his neck, slitting his throat. He stares at me in shock as blood spurts out of his neck and onto me. This act makes the others stare at me in horror as I simply stand there without any emotion as the body falls to ground, dead. I stare blankly at the rest of the members as they back up in fear. One Arcadian decides to look towards the archers of the group.

"Archers! Fire at will!" He yells as he points directly at me. Several pegasi got airborne with bows, knotting their arrows as they take aim and fire. Multiple arrows fire at me, the archers not caring for simultaneous timing. I tilt my body and the first arrow misses. I continue to move and dodge the incoming arrows, spinning and jumping out of the way. I jump up and spin in the air as the last arrow hit the ground. I landed and looked up with a neutral expression on my face as I reach for the closest arrow and break it in two, grabbing the half with the arrowhead so I may use it as weapon later. I then run at the Arcadians which surprises them as I was not injured but was then terrified. I run at a member who has a shield and thinks that I'm going to hit him with my sword so he put up his shield but he was dead wrong as I instead shoulder bash him which makes him stumble and fall. I then spin kicked the side of his head, knocking him out. I run to next member who tries to skewer me with a spear but I side step and elbow his face before cutting right through his skull.

A random Arcadian runs at me from with a sword and shield and attempts to stab me but I jump back slightly, which he responds by trying to bash me with his shield. He hits and I stagger for a second but recover in time for me to roll out of the way of a strike from his sword. I turn around after rolling and block his incoming sword strikes, looking for an opening. As I am waiting for the right time, an archer starts to fire arrows at me, making me dodge those. I try to use the incoming arrows to hit the one with the sword but he is blocking them with his shield. Finding myself in a predicament, I try to find a way to stop this but I can't since if I try to get the swordsman, the archer will get me and vise versa. We continue this song and dance until I finally find the opportunity I was waiting for. The swordsman tried to stab me which I dodged to the side with an arrow hitting his shield. I then jump onto his shield and stab him in the eye with my arrowhead! This caused him to scream in pain clutch his face with his hand, his sword on the ground because he dropped it. The archer was about to shoot but didn't when he saw his fellow member get stabbed in the eye, putting him a temporary shocked state. I decide to take care of the archer as the swordsman will be out of commission for a while. I still kick his sword away from him as a safety concern. The archer does notice me running at him and tries to shoot me but misses as he was panicking. His panicking also made him mess up knotting his arrow. This mess up allowed me to get close enough to stab him in the head. I yanked out my sword and see that other Arcadians had surrounded me with spears.

"HA! Now we've got you! Let's take him out boys." One member says in excitement. Looking around, there's no visible way out. There aren't any gaps in the circle I'm in and I can't jump over them as there are more Arcadians waiting outside the circle who could take me out. I'm legitimately trapped and it honestly pissed me off. I can't believe I just let them do this to me and I never even thought to take it into consideration or prepare for it. And now because of it, I'm trapped. The guards outside the circle can't help me as they are fighting their own fights. They are slowly moving in with their spears pointing directly at me.

'Damn it! I need to think of something!' I think in anger while tightly gripping my sword. I can't even use it since if I try to attack any of them, they can just attack me. FUCK!!! I can't think of anything to do that won't end badly for me. I decide to do the next best thing that will greatly hurt my pride but fuck it!

"SOMEONE HELP!!!" I scream out as loud as I possibly can. This shocks the surrounding spear men who start moving faster and thrust their spears at me. Time seems to slow down as the spears seem to be coming at me with a snails pace. My life flashes before my eyes as I see my parents bringing me to dojo during my seventh birthday to meet Emanuel. But before the rest of my life can be shown to me, I suddenly feel myself being pulled away from reality? It hard to explain but that the best explanation I have since that's what it felt like for me. Anyway, I feel myself come back into reality and I'm in the air but before I fall on my face, I feel my entire body being grabbed and I look to see myself glowing a blue aura. I try to turn my body to see who doing this but can't do so. Must be some sort of magic and it's restricting my body. Thankfully whoever picked me up put me on the ground. I turn around to see Luna, Celestia, and the girls all wearing battle armor and holding weapons. I see faint blue aura around Luna's horn and she comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder in concern.

"Sir Aaron, are you alright?!" She asks me in concern. This made me smile. Glad to know they care about my well being.

I nod in response. "Yes Princess Luna, I'm okay. And no 'sir'. I don't like my friends calling me by titles." I say knowing I fucked up a little by calling her my friend. I was actually half expecting her to get angry at me but instead she blushes and smile.

"I would happily be your friend Aaron." She says with a hug, "As long as you do the way with titles." She giggles at the end and pokes my nose. The rest of the girls giggle at this as well as Celestia.

"Thanks for saving me guys. I was kinda in a pickle." I say with a nervous chuckle while rubbing the back of head. I look over at the rest of the girls and I am very shocked to see there were about a hundred guards with them. About 30 Pegasi with bows and arrows are in the air, wearing standard gold armor with a few wearing dark blue and gray armor with lighting designs on them. They must be the leader of the pegasus guard. There were also about 40 earth ponies, most of them were wearing the gold armor. It seems the leader of the earth pony force was wearing white and gold armor with while wielding a giant spear. The last leader was the leader of the unicorn force. He seems to be wearing a purple armor and is holding a shield with a pink star with six points and a sword. All of them are prepared to fight the Arcadians. Speaking of them, the circle of members I was in a minute ago are now very surprised that I escaped, but also that reinforcements arrived. The others there also were worried but they still got over it as they all got together and formed a wall. Shields were in the front with spear men following behind to try skewer any guards facing the blockade. Swordsmen were in the third and fourth row, to deal with any who break through the first two. Archers were in the very back, preparing to fire the volley of arrows. Unicorns were also in the back but they instead were at the side of the archers, getting spells ready. It was a very strong formation, perfect for almost any situation. Celestia sees this and frowns before looking towards all the of her guards.

"ALL GUARDS!!" She starts off, projecting her voice loudly, catching the attention of all her guards, "GET INTO ESCARIOT FORMATION!!!" All the guards salute and get into their own formation. This one seems to be divided among the three pony races but this seems to be a perfect counter to the Arcadians own formation. The pegasi are in the air with shields actually under them to block attacks from the ground. They have their archers positioned to where the ones in the middle may shoot through small gaps in the shields and the ones along the edge of the archers can just shoot over the edge. We also have the unicorns at the center of a semi square, in front and to the sides of them are earth ponies who have their shields and spears the same as the Arcadians. It seems the unicorn are to provide magical strength to break the blockade and the archers will take out the unicorns and archers of the Arcadians.

"This is a very powerful formation that is used to counter formations like the one over there." Celestia states while gesturing to the Arcadian formation. I nod in response with a big smile clearly visible on my face.

"We shall all be in our own respective groups." Luna says looking over to the girls. "Applejack and Pinkie Pie will help with the earth pony defense. Rarity and Twilight will support the unicorns. And Rainbkw Dash and Fluttershy will help our pegasi." She informs them while pointing the each of them. The only problem was where I was going to be.

"But where will I be in this battle?" I ask while gesturing to myself. They all look over to me in surprise that I was still willing to fight. Luna steps toward with a calming smile and look in her eyes.

"Aaron, you don't need to continue. You have fought hard and without you, more death would have occurred." Ironic since I literally killed like 12 of them. "But let us take care of the rest." She finishes. I shake my head immediately in discomfort and disagreement.

"No. Ponyville is now my home too. And I will see that it is protected." I say with a stomp of my foot to reinforce my argument. All of them seem to be shocked I was still willing to go on but replaced it with a smile from all of them. Luna then nods.

"We understand Aaron. You can fight in this battle. And as for your question, you will be with me and Celestia in the front lines." Now it was my turn to be surprised. I was both honored and shocked. To let me fight in the front lines just like that was what shocked me and to fight with them would honestly be an honor. I was about to ask why but Luna beat me to the punch. "We all saw how you performed in battle and, needless to say, we were very impressed. You are an extremely talented and gifted fighter and we want you to fight with us." This surprised me yet again and I was actually a little embarrassed to be praised like this, always have been, but on the other hand I felt honored to be called a talented fighter by princesses.

"Well then let's go." I say with a serious expression. The rest get a similar expression on their faces as well and nod in agreement. The princesses horns begins to glow and engulf everyone. Before I know it, that strange feeling from before reappears and I'm in front of the earth pony and unicorn formation. I turn my head to see Applejack and Pinke among the guards, holding spears and ready for action. In the back I also see Rarity's and Twilight's hair in the unicorn guards. I look up and see the pegasi in the sky but I can't see Rainbow or Fluttershy because of the shields but I assume they're there. The princesses are next to me with Luna holding a large black and blue spear with a shield with a moon crescent on it. Celestia is holding her own shield with a sun in it and appears to be holding a golden yellow great sword. I look over in front of me and see the Arcadians looking toward us and we start to march in unison towards them. After a few seconds, the march turns into a full on run with all of us battle crying. I'm much faster than the rest though so I'm able to get ahead and run straigh at the enemy's who are holding their ground. They prepare for my approach and point their spears at me. Anticipating this, I instead run to the left and away from the line of shields. Now when I was observing the formation they had, I noticed that they didn't have any shields covering the sides like we did. So, I took advantage of this and ran outwards from them before running right back but at the rows of swords, not the shields. They saw this and were shocked to see me exploit this but got over it quickly as I was approaching. About five of them ran at me, each of them with a sword in hand and only two with small shields to protect themselves. The others seemed to be shocked about my decision but can't do anything about it since the rest of the Arcadians have reached them and are struggling for control. I don't mind since I would prefer to fight alone on this instance.

The first move was done by an Arcadian with only a sword. He attempts to cleave my head off but I easily duck under it and grab his face, shoving his face down into the ground, knocking him out immediately. I quickly move to the next before they could react, this one holding a shield. I grab his shield and pull it before slamming my head against his, knocking him back and causing him to slip his arm off the shield and letting me take hold of it. With him being stunned, I turn and body and throw the shield at the first member I see like a frisbee. The shields bangs against his helmet as he falls to the floor unconscious. The guard I headbutted had regain composure and was close to imposing me but instead missed as I side stepped and straight punched him in the nose.

"AH! BLOODY TARTARUS! WHAT THE SHITE!" He yells as he holds his muzzle in pain. I was surprised to see he had an Australian accent but whatever. He uncovers his muzzle and glares at me. "Why you no good piece of traAH!!" He yells as I punch him in the muzzle again. "CELESTIA DAMN IT MATE!" He screams out in pain as he looks to his teammates. "Support please!" The others look at each other before looking back at the two of us and moves up. "HA! Let's see you handle all three of AH! DAMN IT!!" Yes, I punched him in the muzzle......again. It's not an asshole move, it's just he was annoying me. The other two finally reach us as the injured member, who I'm sure has a broken muzzle now, is on the floor in pain. One of them tries to stab me but I just tilt my body and rush to knee him in the gut. This takes the wind out of him as his teammate swings at me multiple times but is failing as I just move out of the way at the last second. Eventually I move behind him and grab the back of his head, before slamming it down into the dirt, knocking him out. The member I just knee'd tries to chop my head off, but fails as I roll backwards before running to him and dropkicking him to the ground. I walk over to him to see he's out of commission, leaving only the one with a broken muzzle. He eventually got up and grabbed his sword before looking at me and prepares to run at me..........only for him to call to the ground unconscious. Well that was anticlimactic.

It seems to battle going on is getting worse as the noises of weapons clanging increased. I turn around to see that everyone is now out of formation and are now just fighting their own individual battles. The pegasi in the sky are now scattered and are taking pot shots into the enemy. I look to see Celestia and Luna in the middle of the battlefield fighting multiple Arcadians at the same time and seems to be holding their own, but me being experienced, I can tell that their being overwhelmed slowly. Deciding to help, I pull out my sword and run straight to them, cutting down those who get in my way and to help the guards a little. Reaching the princesses, I impale the first member I see who's currently having a struggle with Celestia. She seems to be surprised that I suddenly appeared and killed the Arcadian but brushed it off as I pushed her out of the way of a spear attempting to stab her. Instead the spear hits his currently dead teammate as I pull out the sword and slash at his throat, killing him. I look over to Celestia and nod to her to which she does the same and goes back into the battle. Looking over to Luna, she seems to be holding out and I decide to move on to help others. For the past 7 minutes, I ran throughout the battle and killed Arcadians and supporting the guards and my friends. Speaking of the girls, Fluttershy stayed out of the battle with Rainbow Dash protecting her, Applejack and Pinkie weren't having many problems but I still helped them since they were having a few troubles. The worst of them were Twilight and Rarity, as Twilight only made a shield which was almost broken by the time I got to them. Taking care of the Arcadians made both of them throw up since I killed them.

'Damn it. They weren't ready for battle. I need to get them out of here.' Was my first thought since they couldn't stay under the shield the whole time, let alone fight. So I decide to break the shield by hitting it with my sword, scaring the two girls out of their shock. They look over in fear as they most likely thought it was an Arcadian but visibly calm down when they see it's me. The first action the did was but me which I returned but let go quickly so I could address the real problem.

"Twilight, I need you to teleport out of here to safety. Can you do that?" I ask in concern while checking back to see that no one has tried to break through yet. Looking back, I see that Twilight is shaking her head with a sad look in her eyes.

"No I can't. I used what was left of my magic to make and hold that shield." Well shit. But it only got worst. "And Rarity can't do it because she doesn't know the spell." Rarity nods in sad agreement. Then there's only one way to actually deal with this situation. Grabbing both of their hands, I drag them out of the shield and gesture them to follow me. The plan was to bring them to where Fluttershy and Rainbow was so they could be protected, problem was a certain asshole I stabbed was in the way. It was the Arcadian I stabbed in the eye with an arrowhead and he looked furious.

"There you are you bastard. I've been looking for you so we can end what we started." He says as he gets into a battle stance. Now I would've accepted but I can't as I'm in the middle of a something and can't be bothered. So I silently shake my head. This angered him more than he already was. "DON'T YOU SAY NO TO ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I WILL TAKE OFF YOUR HEAD!" He screams out as he runs to me with the intent to kill. My instincts take over and I meet him in the middle. My quick movement shocks him and I use this to my advantage as I grab his head and pull it right into my knee, breaking his muzzle. Before he can react to his pain, I jump back and sweep under his legs which causes him to fall on his back. At this point, I pull out my sword and, before he can beg for mercy, I sink the blade into his skull, killing him. Pulling the sword out, I watch as the blood begins to pool below his head. I turn my head to see both the girls terrified of me but get over it when I start to drag them back to where we were going. Luckily there was nothing else in our way and all three of us were able to get into the house Fluttershy was in. They all hugged when we arrived but I couldn't stay since there was still work to be done which they understood. Running back into the battlefield, it took all of the guards plus the princesses about 10 more minutes to defeat their forces. In the end, about half of them were dead and the other half were incapacitated. As for our forces, about 15 out of the hundred we had died while about 30 more were injured. We were getting ready to leave but before we could, a member of the Arcadians that was still conscious lifted his head off the ground with a grunting noise.

Looking our direction with a smirk, he spoke in a raspy and tired voice, "Don't get cocky. Arcadia isn't done yet. The boss still hasn't gotten here yet. And when he does, you're all dead." He spat out the last word for emphasis. One guard who heard started laughing as a response.

"Oh yeah?" He starts mockingly. "What is gonna do against all of us?" He asks threateningly as he gestured to all the other guards. The Arcadian on the ground starting laughing at this.

"You will see very soon. In fact, you will see what he's capable of right now." He says before falling unconscious. As if on que, Arcadians start dropping from the sky on ropes and start attacking the unsuspecting guards. The guards start retaliating almost immediately and another battle has ensued. Looking up, I see a giant AIRSHIP!! I didn't even knew they had those things here!? I can see ropes coming out of the sides and members are sliding down them. But before I know it, a giant fireball flys to the airship blowing a portion of it to pieces. Turning around, I see Celestia standing their with an enraged look on her face and her horn glowing. A noise comes from in front of us and, looking down, I see a group of ponies, one is an earth, the other a pegasi, and the last is a unicorn. The earth pony has a red mane with yellow tips and an orange coat and has deep red eyes. He's wearing an orange colored chestplate as well as leg and arm guards with an orange helmet. He's also holding a large orange halberd on his back. Under his helmet, I could see a large vertical scar going through his right eye. On his right, there is a pegasus mare, who has a blue mane, a green coat and purple eyes. She's wearing leather or cloth armor instead of metal. The armor seems to be more for agile movement instead of protection. She seems to be wielding twin shortswords, the right one is blue, the left green. Then there is the unicorn who is completely covered in armor from head to toe (or hoof I guess) with the exception being eyeholes showing white glowing eyes. The armor itself is mostly black with a couple spikes coming out of his helmet, his knees, and his elbows. He is holding no weapon it seems so I assume he either uses his fists or magic.

The orange stallion looks over the battlefield before looking straight at Celestia and Luna and creepily smiles. "Ah if it isn't Princess Celestia and Luna! It's been a little while hasn't it?" He says with a menacing smile and mocking tone which makes the pegasus laugh loudly but the unicorn just stares.

The princesses don't seem to be that amused though. "Flaming Ash! How dare you come here and cause chaos?! Now you will feel my wrath!!" Celestia screams out as she spreads her wings out and takes to the air, her horn glowing brightly. "TAKE THIS!!!!" A giant fireball, even bigger than the one that hit the airship, is launched towards Flaming Ash who only smirks. As the fireball gets closer, the unicorn jumps in the way and sticks his hand out as a large shield that looks crystal in nature appears out of his hand and the fireball it blocked. After the smoke clears, the shield doesn't even seem to have a scratch on it. This shocks everyone including Celestia and Luna. Flaming Ash only laughed.

*laughs* "Now," He changed to a menacing tone so quickly it suprised me, "it's out turn." The other two nod and dash at us extremely quickly. I could barely even track then but I still did. Rushing out with my sword in the hand, my target is the pegasus mare who I see has her swords out. She sees me heading her way and decides to attack. Her entire body goes into the air and she spins in a circle motion, striking with both of her blades. Bringing up my sword, I was able to block the hit but it had so much kinetic force behind it, she almost broke through the block. Luckily, I held out and pushed her away to which she started to spin and twirl in the air gracefully before landing just as gracefully. Standing up straight, I see that her eyes where closed and she had a smile clearly plastered on her face, as if she was satisfied with me. She then, with her eyes still closed, got into a battle stance, holding both her swords in front of her, with the right one in front of her face, covering everything except her eyes, and her left sword below her body, touching the ground with the tip of the sword.

Opening her eyes finally, the purple glow of her eyes reflecting off her blue sword, she asks the all important question.

"So......shall we dance?"