Clash of the Legends

Shining Armor had been hoofing it for at least an hour before he stopped to take a rest. Last he'd heard, Celestia had managed to start a fire in the kitchen, and nopony had been bothered to go and help. He may have been the only one who thought it was a trap. Some static came over the radio, possibly from somepony on his team, but he didn't really care, he just needed a break. Darkness was washing over the forest rapidly, and soon he'd have to begin the painstaking process of scanning around with the flashlight. Parking his plot onto a fallen log, he wiped the sweat off his brow and attempted to remember fully why the hell he was in this predicament. He considered it, but the possibility of a sneak attack while he was lost in thought was too great. After catching his breath for at least 20 minutes, he reached for his crossbow and hoofed the button on the light. A faint click was heard, and a beam of light shone through the forest, slowly fading as the rays spread far away into the night. Finally, he huffed as he stood up and began shining the light into the undergrowth.

And so, I save his sorry plot again. he thought to himself. He'd better not be sat making no contributions to the team.

"...And that is where you all come in." Scorch finished telling his plan to the 256 strong crowd crammed into the cavern. His clones assisted in the cloning process so he could have a bigger clone army (Yo, dawg!), so he only had to say the rhyme 7 times before he had a small battalion in his service. The Princesses may have laid one of their team, managed to gain mind control over him and one of the princesses probably laid another, but let's see what they've done to 256 CLONES of him! At most, they were militaristic drones with major differences in personality, (One claims to be the Guard side of him and refuses to stop staring at the entrance to the cavern "in case of infiltrators", whilst another came out as a mare and claims to be his mare side. She is currently his left hoof mare.) they still form a loosely dangerous army when combined. "Any questions?" 1024 hooves all pounded the ground as the cavern boomed and shook as a simultaneous 'No, El Tee!' roared from his audience.

"El Tee?" whispered his second in command from just next to his perch atop a rock. Scorch looked down, patiently awaiting the replica. The first of him to be created, this was his 'Self-Admiring' side, constantly complimenting, er, himself.

"Yep?" he informally replied. He was talking to himself.

"This is televised." whispered the clone. "I think it would be a good idea to alert the other copies."

"Yeah," his mare side replied, "you might get a bigger chance of more respect." she nudged him in the arm. "Who knows? Maybe you'll stop being lonely."

"Hey, shut u-Mmm, that's true." Scorch's ears drooped, but picked up as he adressed the troops. "I was just informed, that our success is to be broadcast all around Equestria. We'll probably just be seen as a rag-tag group of failures, but that's what we're NOT!" he arose a cheer. "We are warriors! To be shown to innocent families that guards aren't for decoration! Why are we here?" He asked, really getting in the mood.

"FOR HONOUR!" The crowd roared.

"And how do we get it?"

"NO FIGHT, NO GLORY!" the crowd broke into excited cheers, and broke off.

"Well, that went well. Thanks for the reminder." Scorch winked at Scorchette, who rolled her eyes and trotted off. Satisfied he'd done enough, he led the troops out of the cavern and back the way he came.

The moment Celestia opened her eyes, a crossbow tip was being pushed into her snout. Eyes still bleared from the smoke, she traced the weapon and who was aiming it. He deep purple eyes moved up the figure. As soon as she saw the armour she was confused. Which armour config. was it? After a few seconds, she tried to move her eyes to see the face, but it was covered by a pair of black goggles and Black mask covering the rest of the face. The only thing she could hear besides her erratic heartbeat was muffled breathing coming from inside the mask. She'd heard it before; during the Earth Pony rebellion of 67AC (After Celestia) she had had plenty of masked figures pointing weapons at her when she went out fighting. It was even worse when she was taken hostage: nothing but Masked Guerilla warriors carrying weapons of all kinds were surrounding her. But this one had a horn coated black from the soot and wings covered in a black plating.

"Mmph hmmhmmhmmph phount fou." Came a muffled voice. In possibly the least understandable way, she figured one of the other two princesses had found her. But why was she being threatened?

"Is that one of you two?" Celestia stuttered. "Why? I thought this was team based!"

At that moment, the mask fell, revealing Cadence's pink snout in a snarling gap.

"Your idea of teams?" Cadence coldly glared through the goggles. "Just got overruled." she growled as she fired into Celestia's skull. Though the round didn't go through, or in for that matter with no pain, Hundreds of volts ripped through the Alicorn's body, causing her to let out a whimper and fall without a sound, her vision dimming. After several seconds of darkness, a tiny light formed in the dark, before engulfing her in a rainbow of colours. She found herself being pulled through a tunnel with seemingly no end. Suddenly, in the end of the cylinder, she could see a hole. In a flash, she was ripped through it.

Luna had finally finished scavenging when a message came over the radio once again. Celestia once again spoke into the microphone, sounding dazed.

"Guys, Cadence just attacked. Scrap the teams, it's everypony for themselves."

Luna dropped her crossbow in surprise. She thought she had an advantage over one of them, but the other four? No advantage. She immediately shook her head, snapping out of her trance and steeling herself for the coming onslaught.