Terror in Equestria 9: Return of Tambelon

After a good night's rest, Colgate woke up and the first thing she did was look into the eye and see if there were any problems other than the situation in Tambelon going on. Luckily she noticed that the rest of the world was peaceful and mundane before turning her sights on Tambelon. She zeroed in on it and noticed that Grogar had the ponies in the cave mining rather early and that Twilight was still tied up outside, in the elements. What had been rain and changed to freezing rain at this point. She also noticed that Twilight was being whipped and had a few open wounds. Despite not trusting or caring for Twilight, even this bothered her, it bothered her enough to realize that she needed to train her forces hard enough that she could launch the invasion the following day rather than in two days.

Colgate headed downstairs and was greeted by her generals, the other leaders and Fluttershy. They noticed that she had a sad and distraught look on her face. The first one to say anything was Ruby. She asked, "Colgate, what is wrong?"

One thing Colgate did know was that she could not show that she had any sympathy for Twilight around Ruby as she did not want to lose the gift of using her powers in her realm that Ruby had given to her. She replied, "Grogar has Fluttershy's friends out very early forcing them to mine for him."

White Magick asked, "And what about Twilight? What is he doing to her?"

Colgate replied, "Well she's still tied up out in the elements and it appears and the rain up there has turned into freezing rain and is falling much more heavily."

Ruby couldn't help but snicker, "Maybe she'll wind up sparkling like an icicle does in the sun! Twilight Icicle has a nice ring to it, doesn't it everypony?"

Colgate gave her a nervous laugh while White Magick just couldn't take it anymore. He flared his horn up in anger and yelled, "Honey, she is suffering and I'm pretty sure she is going to get sick out there. I know you despise her but I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy! If we don't hurry up and rescue her, the poor thing may fall into....."

Ruby also flared her horn up in anger and snapped, "You know what, since you seem to care so much about your precious little Twily, maybe we should just part ways and you can get with her." She got a grin on her face and continued, "And when our subjects learn that you fell for an Equestrian and chose her over me, you will be forced out and I shall rule alone."

Colgate yelled, "Stop with the arguing!" She calmed down and continued, "Look, after everything I saw this morning involving the deteriorating elements and the crimes Grogar is committing against those five, I have come to the conclusion that we will train hard today and then tomorrow morning, we will head towards Tambelon."

Everypony was in a state of shock, especially Celestia. She knew that Colgate did not care about Twilight nor did she mention her by name, the fact that she said "those five," she thought that perhaps she did care about her a little bit. She asked, "So Colgate, what time will we begin training?"

Colgate replied, "Immediately after breakfast. Don't worry though, we will break for lunch at 1200 before returning to training and we will stop for the day at 1800."

Fluttershy, who remembered the training from long ago asked, "So Colgate, will we be training like we did when we trained to go take the jade Alicorn?"

Colgate replied, "Actually no. That was only done for an invasion to seize a relic, this is going to be a full scale military invasion. What we will be doing is firing weak energy at one another, just enough so that we can feel the energy of the other but not strong enough it will cause any pain nor will it knock us from the sky."

Dark Night who had been rather quiet asked, "What about us? What about the dark Alicorns and the changelings?"

Colgate replied, "The dark Alicorns and changelings will be having their own exercises. Your troops will be facing off against the changelings in agility and accuracy exercises and like us, you will not use nearly enough energy to cause any harm to the changelings."

Lightning Storm, who had been completely silent commented, "Oh, and when do you plan on duplicating all of us?"

Colgate replied, "Immediately after breakfast. Now I will not be making thousands of you, probably just a hundred or so since our enemy has no way to duplicate his forces."

This was something that neither the dark Alicorns nor the changelings had ever experienced before, plans of small scale duplication. Colgate led everypony to the dining hall and continued, "Well let's get some food in our system and then get over to the base."

After breakfast they headed to the base where they would receive detailed instructions on what they would be doing but the first thing she did was round up her hoof soldiers. Once she had them all in one place she ordered, "Troops, I need you all to stand still and be alert."

In unison they replied, "Yes ma'am!"

She had four of each type and knew that was not nearly enough so she would not have to cast the spell very many times. She lit up her horn and recited, "From one to two, two to four and so much more, when one is simple mere, more and more shall appear."

She cast the spell and she then had eight of each but for her that was still too few, especially given who they were going up against. She cast the spell four more times and in the end she had 128 of each, which she figured was more than enough since some would be staying home to keep an eye on things.

Her generals stood up by her and the army stood before them waiting for them to begin their address. Colgate began, "Troops, tomorrow we have a very important mission and we must not fail."

Dark Night added, "Tomorrow we will launch an invasion of Tambelon and we have two goals, one is to rescue five ponies who look a lot like our Supreme Commander, they will have wings and a horn and the other goal, slaughter everything else, including a goat with red eyes."

Colgate continued, "Now this goat has very strong magic and could take you out if he struck you with enough of his magic."

Lightning Storm added, "Because of this, we shall be engaging in agility and accuracy exercises today."

Colgate continued, "What you will be doing is firing at one another with minimal energy and when it comes to the changelings, your goal will be to cover the dark Alicorns in ooze, immobilizing them and disabling their magic. The dark Alicorns will also need to free their immobilized comrades with their energy." She stood taller and asked, "Do you understand?"

In unison they yelled, "Yes ma'am!"

Colgate asked, "Any questions?"

Again the yelled, "No ma'am!"

Colgate replied, "Good, now get to work." As her hoof soldiers began their exercises Colgate headed to her fellow Alicorns and ordered, "Alright, now that my hoof soldiers are engaging in their exercises, we shall engage in our own?"

LaurFa asked, "So how are we going to do this?"

Colgate replied, "Alright, Luna, Celestia, Scootaloo and Cosmos, you will be on my side while White Magick, Ruby, Fluttershy, Galaxia and LaurFa will be playing the role of the Tambelonian forces."

LaurFa asked, "Seriously, we have to engage in this kind of exercise when the only one with magic up there is Grogar. The rest of them should be easy to wipe out."

Colgate replied, "Yes, I want us to do this and remember, only use a minimal amount of energy because I certainly don't want us harming one another, ok."

In unison they said, "Ok."

They all took to the sky and began their exercises. Some of them wound up getting hit fairly often while Colgate and Scootaloo, who were the most agile of them all wound up only getting hit once the entire morning. As they were doing this, Colgate couldn't help but be frustrated over the lack of agility so many of her fellow leaders had. She knew that Grogar could not fly but still, she wanted them to be just as prepared as they would have been if they were going up against Twilight and her forces like they did in the old days.

As the day progressed, everypony was doing better and was becoming more agile during the exercises and at 1800 Colgate ended the exercises and gathered everypony at the base. Once everypony was present she yelled, "Attention!"

Everypony quit talking and stared straight at her. She began, "Alright troops, I would say that today was a spectacular day of training. At first I noticed that a lot of you weren't very agile and were a somewhat inaccurate with your firing but by the end of the day, I was very impressed with what I saw. Because of this, I do believe that we will be more than ready to launch our invasion tomorrow. Does anypony have any questions?"

White magic asked, "When will we be leaving and what time will we be arriving there?"

Colgate replied, "We will be eating an early breakfast around 0700 and hopefully we can leave by 0800. Given that it is not too far away, we should reach Tambelon by 1100 and I do hope that this won't take too long. Given our advantage in numbers and the fact that more than just one of us has magic, this likely won't take too long."

White Magick asked, "So are we going to go and rescue Twilight right away or....."

Ruby gave him a scowl and interrupted, "Is that all you care about? Is all you care about is your precious little Twily?"

Colgate added, "No White Magick, we are going to go in there, slaughter Grogar, his lackey Bray and all his trogals. After that we will go and rescue those who have been taken captive." She rolled her eyes and continued, "Any other questions?"

Nopony else had any questions so Colgate dismissed them and headed back to the tower. Before she did so though, she headed to the armory and grabbed a sword, a titanium sword that she believed could either cut Grogar's collar off or perhaps cut him open.

Once she returned to her tower, the very first place she went was up to her chambers to scan the world through the eye. Like it was that morning, there was nothing out of the ordinary going on but once she zeroed in on Tambelon, she saw that the four Grogar had mining were being abused and yelled at because of a poor day of production. She then saw a trogal whipping Twilight and another clawing her flank, trying to claw her cutie mark off. She shook her head and realized that what they were going to be dealing with was much more sadistic than she initially thought. Deep down, she had a good feeling that her forces would wipe out their enemy and save those five from the torture they were enduring.