A Grim Vacation

Hello there reader, I see I’ve caught your attention. Please allow me to introduce myself, I have had many names such as Eldin Marl, Jacob Creed, Kurojin but you may call me Lord Marcellus, lord of heavens, god of love, war, death and the great forest spirit.

Once I was just a normal human who craved adventure and power in fictional worlds. Then one day I actually managed to force my way into one. Since then I’ve been going from fictional universe to fictional universe having adventures and gaining more and more powers on the way.

So now here I stand at six feet tall with the muscle tone of a well seasoned martial artist with long brown hair tied in a ponytail going down the middle of my back. My eyes are bright green and I’m dressed some of the finest but also practical clothes that the Stargate universe version of Britain can offer in the year 723 A.D staring out of my bedroom window of my castle in my capital city of York sighing in boredom as my short vision of the future fades away.

My plans here in the present for the Stargate universe are simple in theory but difficult in practice. After the downfall of the system lords in the canon timeline the Jafar rose up to form their own intergalactic government but they alone could not fill the power vacuum and a powerful organised crime syndicate called the Luciana alliance started causing chaos across the galaxy.

So I went back in time after the goa'uld left Earth but before the British empire or even England ever became a thing and establish the Earth which we will call Midgard as the first power base of the Lords of Heavens.

As for the Lords of Heavens themselves, one man no matter how powerful he is can rule an entire galaxy by himself or at least he shouldn’t. I might be able to pull it off but I doubt it would be a good idea so instead, I'm gathering powerful beings from a number of fictional universes who I believe would be suitable to rule vast quadrants of the galaxy as part of a vast intergalactic union.

So far I’ve only got the first Mewtwo (yes there's more than one, the first was created by Team Rocket and the second by Team Plasma) Lord Sesshomaru and Loki working with me and together we’ve have been able to gained the territories of what you would recognise as England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and most recently Spain.

Not bad for only fifteen years work but now we have to take a break for a decade or two to increase our population and work on improving infrastructure. The Vikings aren’t due to invade until 793 so it’s not like we need to rush things and I can afford to take some time off to cure my boredom.

I've been working on my own version of the fourth generation of My Little Pony universe because of its geocentric nature. You see when I first arrived in the Stargate universe it wasn’t 723A.D but 2007 A.D sometime after the entire Asgard race committed mass suicide in the face of total annihilation by genetic degradation or the Ori. When their homeworld was attacked by the Ori they choose neither and instead blew themselves up along with their entire planet but not before giving their human allies ship an upgrade which included all their latest technology. So naturally, I just had to steal it.

How is this relevant to the pony world’s geocentric nature you might ask. One of the things that the Asgard invented was time manipulation technology. It can create a time dilation field in which time can be made to go fast, slower or even backwards.

The time dilation field can be big enough to contain entire planets and theoretical I can use the Stargate network to expand the time dilation field to manipulate time across multiple star systems at once or maybe the entire galaxy but not the entire universe.

Which when you consider galaxies like to move at the speed of light might cause some problems with collisions.

In the My Little Pony universe on the other hand. No celestial body moves without being moved by one of the alicorn princesses moving it so as long as I encompass the entire solar system I can freely manipulate time without consequences. Like making time move faster there so that century there is only a few days here hence why my future self in my vision of told an elderly Applebloom 125 years only constitutes as a little vacation.

I make arrangements with my fellow lords and my top minions letting them know I will be away on vacation for a few weeks. My current wife Angelina who I gained by giving her a magical contract is a bit upset with me but she knows she can’t stop me or force me to take her with me so she just tells me to have fun and goes to bed in a different room. Yeah… good thing the castle has a lot of bedchambers or I would be sleeping on the sofa when I get back.

Now that all the arrangements have been made I lock on to the time-space coordinates I need in my custom version of MLP G4 ep1 s1 before going into stealth mode and teleporting to The Golden Oak Library.
…..

Twilight Sparkle, the student of Princess Celestia herself has not been having a good day. First she reads a book that tells her of a prophecy that Princess Celestia's evil sister Nightmare Moon is going to escape from her one thousand years of imprisonment on the moon tomorrow morning but when she tried to warn her mentor she gets sent to Ponyville to over the preparations for the Summer Sun Festival and is told to “make some friends.”

Twilight however is a reclusive book worm who is more used to having acquaintances and see “making friends” as a waste of time when she is busy trying to prevent Nightmare Moon escaping and bring forth eternal night. But now it’s the early hours of the morning and I’m watching her as she is laid on a bed in the upstairs section of the library with her head under pillow trying to block out the noise of her own “Welcome to Ponyville” party that is happening downstairs.

A Purple two-foot tall bipedal reptile walks into the room with a lampshade on his head. This is Spike the baby dragon who is Twilight's number one assistant.

“Hey Twilight, Pinkie Pie started pin the tail on the pony, do you want to play?”

“No” she yelled “all the ponies in this town are crazy! do you know what time it is? It’s 4:05 in the morning! The sun rises in less than an hour and I want at least half a hours sleep before I have to get up for The Summer Sun Celebration and I don’t want tired in front of the Princess.”

Spike nods "yeah ok Twilight that makes sense but the party downstairs is for you, you really should come join in and besides everypony is supposed to stay up the night before The Summer Sun Celebration so I don’t think Princess Celestia is going to hold being tired against you.”

Twilight huff’s “er, whatever Spike, just come a fetch me when it’s time.” Ok, Twilight Spike said as he turns and leaves the room and Twilight settles down into the bed.

If you have a good memory of the first episode you may have noticed that while what just happened was similar to the cartoon, Twilight’s words and action were off script. This world is real now and fate's hold is no longer as ironclad as it once was.

I however need to move and phase through the wall. I only have half an hour or so to forge the paperwork I need to make myself a citizen of Equestria and make it look like I rode into Ponyville today and book a room at The Horseshoe Inn.

Never heard of The Horseshoe Inn, have you? That’s because I wrote it into this version of Equestria myself, it's a nice little three hoof rated bed and breakfast place with ten rooms that would be fully booked if I hadn’t created it specifically to get my shoe in Equestria.

No one is running the desk when I arrive so there’s nothing to stop me from writing my assumed pony name into the ledger.
Stealth mode is a divine ability that makes me completely unobservable to those I do not wish to be aware of my presence. I become invisible, inaudible, intangible and even odourless to them. But when I start moving things around in front of people they tend to notice that.
With no one to stop me, I borrow a bit from the till to forge a reasonable sum of counterfeits using the gold I brought with me.

I swipe my key and place a saddle bag full essentials and fakes documents and a trunk in my room before I assume my pony form and seal away the vast majority of powers to leave me only with those that I have deemed necessary for my stay in this world.

My appearance is that of a young unicorn stallion with an ash grey coat, mildly reflective yellow eyes and a lifeless black mane and tail. Not a very common mane colour to be sure but stranger still is my horn does not match my coat which instead of being grey is a slightly off white like an old bone.

I've got clothes too, I'm wearing a black waistcoat and an old long worn woollen black frock coat with a belled top hat with a small black cloth tied around its base that drapes off the back. This is recognised across Equestria as the uniform of a mortician just as it once was in the real world in Victorian England. The coat covers my cutie mark.
…..
Ten minutes before sunrise I arrive in the town hall ahead of most of the crowd and conceal myself in the shadows and wait as the ponies shuffle in. Many of them are taking excitedly as for it will be the first time they have seen the Princess in person. Oh, I see the future CMC are talking together, this time fate will not be able to make them forgot each other as the events soon to take place shall be fixed in their minds for life.

Soon enough Mayor Mare gives her speech and announces Princess Celestia but when the curtains open the Princess is nowhere to be seen. Mayor Mare tries to calm everyone but then a sinister laugh is heard and a dark sparkling cloud appears on the balcony where Princess Celestia was meant to be and the dark alicorn know as Nightmare Moon materialises from it.

“Greetings my beloved subjects it's good to be back. It has been so long since I last saw your precious little sun-loving faces.”

While others huddled together shaking in fear Rainbow Dash was immediately hostile towards the dark alicorn.“Who are you and what have you done with the Princess.”

She prepares to rush Nightmare Moon but before she can move Applejack pulls her to the ground by biting down and tugging on her tail.

“Ma ha ha ha, why? am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?”

Pinkie Pie thinking this was some kind of guessing game interrupts and started saying random names before Applejack gags her with an apple while maintaining her hold on Rainbow Dash.“Oh more guessing game, is it Queen Meanie? Holy Smokes? Oh oh Black Snooty, Black Snooty mumph.”

“Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Do you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?”

This would be the part where Twilight speaks up but I’ve had enough of being silent for now, it’s time I made everyone jump. Before she can say a single word I call out from the shadows.

“I know who you are” I pausing to step into the light with a disturbing smile on my face, startling the few ponies closes to me who had up been unaware of my presence. “I know who everyone is, you are the younger sister of the Princess of the Sun, the mare in the moon, the Princess of the night Nightmare Moon.”

Ponies all around gasp in shock of finding out that the evil princess they had dismissed as just an old ponytale was in fact real and standing before them.
The evil alicorn cackled evilly before she spoke. “Oh good, somepony who remembers me, so you do you also know what I’m going to do?”

“Hee, of course I do. You’re here to bring eternal night to Equestria, which is by the way a terrible idea that will kill off all plant life on this side of the world in about fourteen days and lower the temperature to freezing point. We'll all starve or freeze to death.”

Nightmare Moon stops smiling, her mane and tail form into swirling clouds from which a bolt of lightning shoots out at me but I had been expecting it and I catch it in my hat.

“You lie! None shall die. My eternal night shall be beautiful and all shall learn to love it and me. I hope you enjoyed yesterday morning my subjects for it was your last. From now forth the night shall last forever! Ha ha ha ha."

“Somepony stop her” yelled Mayor Mare. “She’s the only one who knows where the Princess is.”

Several pegasi dress in the golden armour of the royal guard try to surround the dark alicorn but she’s having none of that.

“Stay back you foals” she cries be rearing back on her hind legs and shoots a lightning bolt at them as she stomps down which sends them all flying backwards.

She uses the opening to turn into a dark mist a zips out the doors, Rainbow Dash fly’s out to see her zipping off into the night. “She’s gone”

“Twilight Sparkle” I call across the room as I make my way towards the door. “We have to find the elements Twilight.”

She stalls for a moment in surprise that the odd stallion who had been talking to Nightmare Moon. A pony who she had never met somehow knew her name a was telling her what she needed to do. It was quite a disturbing and jarring experience.“Ah, what? Oh yes, yes the elements of course, to the library.”
She rushed out the door followed by five other mares calling her name.

I made it to the library first and pretend to be looking for the book on Elements of Harmony and started complaining when Twilight and the others arrive.

“What kind of idiot organised this library? It’s like it was all arranged alphabetically with no regards to subject matter. There isn’t even a dedicated child's section, I just found Holly the Hungry Horsey with Hormones and You.”

Applejack speaks up “Ok partner, I ain’t ever seen you around Ponyville before. I ain’t got a clue who ya are or where ya from but you and Twilight seem to be the only ones who know what’s going on. Who the hay are you?”

Now Rainbow Dash gets up in my face. “Yeah Applejack's right, you seem to be rather jolly that Nightmare Moon showed up and seem to know a lot about her too. What's up with that? Are you guys spies?”

I scrunch up my face, “alright fair question but first off take this.”I reached into my coat pocket with my magic and pull out a small wrapped object I swiped from the Inn and presented it to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash takes the small wrapped object and looks it over with suspicious eyes.“What’s this? Your suicide pill or something?”I roll my eyes at her. “No Rainbow Dash it’s a complimentary hotel mint, your breath stinks.”She pulls a stunned face like she can’t believe I just said that, makes the offended horse noise from the show before dropping the mint on the floor and tries to hoof me in the face but once again Applejack pulls her back by the tail.

“Whoa there, simmer down Sally this ain’t the time for a fight, just let him talk.”I levitate my mint up off the floor and put it back in my pocket for later.“Ok that I’ll admit was my bad for provoking her. So, on to business. My name is Grim Gill, as you can tell by my attire I'm a mortician by trade and my special talent is being creepy.”
I show them my cutie mark before continuing. I'll be honest, it's just the ghost sprite from the first generation with the haze recolored in dark purple but none of the mares call me out on it because the Pokémon franchise don’t exist in Equestria.

“Some examples of my creepiness are that when I meet someone for the first time I instantly know several things about them right away without being told. I don’t know how I do it but I do and it’s often more then what one could get from deduction alone but once I see your face I know you’re name, your fears and your deepest desires before you even speak a word. I can also blend into the shadows and move around unheard and unseen.
I'm looking to set up business here in Ponyville. I just arrived yesterday evening and don’t have a place yet so I’m staying at The Horseshoe Inn. I believe it’s your turn now Twilight.”

Twilight has just come back downstairs from putting Spike to bed and is now rushing from shelf to shelf to explain much.

“They already know who I am and we don't have time for this. We need to find the book about The Elements of Harmony so we can find the elements and use them to defeat Nightmare Moon and save Princess Celestia as quickly as possible.”

Rainbow Dash continues her interrogation.“What are these Elements of Harmony anyway? I've never heard of them.”

Twilight stopped what she was doing to face mares who would soon become her closest friends.“I don’t actually know anything about the Elements of Harmony. I don’t know what they do, what they look like or even where they are but what I do know is that Princess Celestia used them to defeat Nightmare Moon in the past. That's why it is so important to find any information that will lead me to them.”

“Found it,” said the ever-enthusiastic ball of energy know as Pinkie Pie holding the book a book in her hooves bearing the title “The Elements of Harmony, a reference guide." “What? Where did you find that?” Grimmy said the library was arranged alphabetically so I looked under E.

Twilight took the book from Pinkie Pie and found the page she needed. “According to this book there are six Elements of Harmony but only five are known. Kindness, generosity, laughter, honesty and loyalty the sixth is a complete mystery. The last known location of the Elements of Harmony was in the ancient Castle of the two sisters which is now in what is known as the Everfree Forest."

Before another word can be said Twilight and I rush out the door towards the Everfree Forest with the five mares running behind calling our names and tell us to wait for them.
…..
Soon enough we arrive at the entrance of a path that leads through the forest and I pause to allow the others to catch up whereas Twilight paused because she finds the forest to be intimidating. I can feel the trickles of fear coming off her feeding my boogie man power core. Time to live up to my reputation.

“Oh my, I don't think I’ve ever seen such a charming forest.” Yep, as I expected all the mares except for Pinkie are give me disturbed looks.

Twilight shakes her head in effort to centre herself “girls I think here is where we should part ways. I'm obviously not going to be able to get rid of Grim Gill but I would really prefer to retrieve the elements on my own.”

Rainbow Dash voices her objection “are you serious? It’s the Everfree Forest. There’s no way we’re letting you go in their alone, especially with him.”

Oh, I didn’t know you were so “fond” of me Rainbow Dash.

Applejack speaks next.“Nopony goes into the Everfree Forest without good reason Twilight, it’s dangerous.”

“So none of you have ever gone in here before?” Twilight asked, “Oh heavens no dear. If the situation were not so dire I wouldn’t even dream of going into such a ghastly forest.”

No prizes for guessing which pony said that. I start walking into the forest by myself.

“Face it Twilight, we're sticking to you like candy on an apple in there." Especially if there’s candy apples in there, those things are good.

“Hey” I call from inside the forest. “Are you ladies coming or not?” Pinkie Pie response first “oh-oh! I’m coming Grimmy, wait for me." Yep, that mare isn’t one bit afraid of me or the forest.

We walked in silence for a bit before Twilight breaks the silence. “You know girls I’ve read about forests before but this is the first time I’ve been in one. I didn’t know that they could be this creepy.”

“It’s more than just creepy, folks say it don’t work the same as the rest of Equestria, the animals here take care of themselves and the clouds move on their own without anypony directing them. Plus there’s monsters like timber wolves in here.”

“But Applejack, timber wolves aren’t monster.” They are when they’re made of magically animated rotting wood sugar cube.

I deliberately stop the group at the edge of a small cliff. At this part in the show, Rainbow Dash would be trying to scare the others by saying “Nopony who goes in ever comes back out.” But my presence has changed some of the dialogue and speaking of presents I've been sensing Nightmare Moon's following us since we left the library. Does she really think I wouldn’t notice her just because she transformed into a cloud of mist?

“Wait a moment, there’s a ravine here. I can either levitate everyone one at a time or we can find an alternative route.”

Before any decisions can be made Nightmare Moon shifts the ground beneath our hooves to cause a landslide.
The two pegasi react quickly taking to the air. Rainbow Dash lifting Rarity to safety and Fluttershy takes Pinkie Pie leaving Twilight, Applejack and I to go tumbling towards the edge.

Black sand bursts forth from my coat to form a floating platform beneath me. Applejack stops her from sliding any further by grabbing a newly exposed tree root with her teeth and Twilight barely manages to catch herself with her hooves leaving her dangling off the edge.

Once the ground has settled Applejack seeing her struggling to hold on released her grip on the tree root and slides down the now sloping ground to help her. She tells Twilight to let go of the edge which Twilight obviously objects to but Applejack assures that she will be fine. The sincerity in her voice convenience Twilight to let go and she falls a short distance before being caught by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy who lowers her to the ground. Fluttershy loses her grip at the last few feet and almost drops Twilight before recovering and apologies stating she isn’t use to carrying anything much more than the weight of a bunny or a stack of laundry. I let Applejack on my floating platform of black sand and we join the others on the path leading through the ravine.

…..

The next few minutes walking are spent with Rainbow Dash enthusiastically tell Twilight what just happened and how amazing she was for acting so quickly. Yes it's obnoxious behaviour but I am just glad that no one is asking about my black sand, that stuff literally causes nightmares.

“You were all like, Applejack your lying I’m going to die if I let go and she was all like no I’m not and then you let go and were all aaah! but then me and Fluttershy swooped in and saved you.”

As Twilight thanks her once again, I feel Nightmare Moon presents zipping through the shadows of the tree’s to the silhouette of a beast up ahead that the girls haven’t noticed yet. But when the manticore roars in pain you can bet they noticed it.

We need to get past the manticore so the girls start attacking it. First Rarity bucks it in the face and calls it a ruffian but then it roars in her face so hard it messes up her mane and the fashion conscious mare has to retreat to fix it.

“Wait,” says Fluttershy trying to catch everyone’s attention but too softly for anyone to hear her. If I hadn’t known she would do that even I wouldn’t be aware of it.

Next up to bat is Applejack who jumps on its back with a “Yee-haw” and rides it like a bucking bronco at a rodeo but is quickly throw off and tags Rainbow Dash. “Wait,” says Fluttershy again but like the last time much to softly.

Rainbow Dash rushes in flying tight circles around the manticore in effort to confuse it but the big cat just roars and sticks out its tail which Rainbow Dash slams into and is sent tumbling tail over teakettle back to the group.

“Everybody stop!” I cry drawing all eyes to me. “I believe Fluttershy would like to try something.”

The pony in question backs up in shyness for a moment before finding the will to act. She approaches the pain enraged beast and gets roared at but with a gentle tone and submissive body language, she is able to calm the manticore down enough that it shows her the thorn in its paw.

She pulls out the thorn coursing the manticore to roar in pain and for a moment it looks like it’s going to kill her but instead it takes her in its paws and gently nuzzles the yellow mare. Now if you're familiar with this part of the show you may recall that it licks her instead, leaving her mane sticking up but that’s more in line with dog behaviour. Cats don’t lick you if they like you, they rub their head against you and as this version of Equestria was made by me with video editing software and magic Fluttershy gets nuzzled instead.

Twilight asks Fluttershy how she knew about the thorn, Fluttershy replies that she didn't but that sometimes you just need to show a little kindness.
.....

A good half hour of walking later sees Rarity complaining about how dreadful the forest is and states how she would like to “rest her eyes from the dreariness” which is when we enter an area were the forest canvas is much thicker and blocks out for light from the moon reducing visibility to just a few feet. When Applejack steps in mud I decide to do something.

“Hang on ladies I’ve got this one, will o’ wisp”

My horn glows with a midnight purple light as I conjurer up six shimmer balls of pale blue light that slowly move in circles around us about a foot overhead.

Now as anyone has a worked with equine will tell you is that ponies are easily spooked so it comes as no surprise when the mares start freaking out and running in circles at the sight of faces in the trees that my soft lights now reveal.

Oh, this is pathetic. If Nightmare Moon thinks this is scary then I am not impressed. I've seen scary things in public restrooms. The faces are so exaggerated and cartoony that only a child would be afraid of them. Still, the fear coming of the five mares is giving me a nice tingly feeling inside.

Pinkie Pie has to ruin the moment for me by laughing at the silly faces and mocks them by pulling her own. Her laughter breaks the others out of the own panicking stupor to stare in confusion at the mare who would laugh in the face of the danger.

When they question her about why she isn’t afraid she tells them there is nothing to be afraid of and starts singing.

“When I was a little filly and the sun was going down.” Tell me she isn’t said Twilight. “The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frown.”
Unfortunately yes, I replied with a frown.
“I'd hide under my pillow from what I thought I saw. But Granny Pie said that wasn’t the way to deal with fear at all.”
Then what is? asked Rainbow Dash
“She said Pinkie, you gotta stand up tall. Learn to face your fears, you’ll see that they can’t hurt you just laugh to make them disappear.”
She then goes up to one of the tree faces and laughs at it. “Ha ha ha!”

In the show, it would disappear in a puff of smoke but illusions don’t disappear just because you laugh at them so it stays there with its stupid exaggerated snarl. I sigh and conjure up more light to overpower the illusion and the face fades away revealing a normal tree. The onlookers gasp and Pinkie Pie resumes singing.

“So giggle at the ghostly, guffaw up at the grossly. Crack up at the creepy, whoop it up at the kooky, Chortle at the spooky.
And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if he thinks he can scare you his got another thing coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna...
Ha ha ha ha...heh...
Laaaaaauuugh!”

Now they’re all rolling around on the forest floor laughing, way to spoil my fun Pinkie. Oh never mind we’re on a schedule anyway, it will be Steven Magnet's scene next.
.....
We get to the river but when we arrive there is no giant purple sea serpent monster to be seen. That makes sense to me as Steven Magnet crying over his ruined moustache was the one event Nightmare Moon didn’t seek to orchestrate and only did so by accident. The Mane Six’s encounter with him was a total fluke. If she missed him there would be nothing to stop him from just swimming off.

I worry for a moment about how Rarity can demonstrate her generosity but I let it go. Twilight's a smart mare, she should be able to figure out that Rarity represents the element of generosity as it will be the only one left after seeing the others all demonstrate their own elements.

Twilight starts panicking.
"Oh no! How are we going to cross this? This river is to deep to wade across and the water is to rough to even attempt it in the first place. We need to find a way over to the other side quickly.”

The smile that had left me when back when I saw Nightmare Moon's pathetic scary trees now returns to my face as I offer up my solution.

“It looks like it’s up to me again, stand back a bit and give me some space.”

Once I have the room I call upon my black nightmare sand again. This time instead of a floating platform I form it into an arched bridge that spans the river and we just walk across to the other side where I banish my sand back into my coat and we continue on our way.
.....

Another half hour of walking brings us in sight of the ruins of the once grand Castle of the two sisters surrounded by mist.

“There it is! The castle of the two sisters, we’re almost there! come on.” Twilight gets excited and charges ahead completely ignoring our calls to wait and almost falls off a cliff only to be saved by Rainbow Dash.

“What is it with you falling off cliffs today?” the cocky rainbow manned pegasus joked. Rarity asks how we would cross the abyss that was the castle's moat with the bridge being out and Rainbow Dash pointed to me with a “duh” however after losing out on Rarity's chance to show her generosity I'm not about to subvert Rainbow Dash's chance to prove her loyalty but I can still make a show of it.

“Alright, ladies stand back.” Posing dramatically I hold out my hooves before me and black sand flows out from my coat sleeves floating in the air. It travels forward half a foot before suddenly falling to the ground. “Oh, hang on a second."
I make exaggerated hoof gestures like I’m to try to raise the sand back into the air but nothing happens. It just sits there and we’re left staring down at the pathetic little buckets worth pile of sand on the ground. I chuckle in embarrassment.

“Eh heh, sorry I guess I’m a little tapped out at the moment. Um Rainbow Dash, why don’t you see if you can fly down and retie the rope bridge.”

Rainbow Dash gives me a deadpan look before flying down the cliff and taking the bridge over to the other side. Though the mist we see her tying up one side of the bridge to the post but before she gets to the other, a voice calls to her. Suddenly three pegasi in dark tight form-fitting uniforms approach Rainbow Dash. They claim to be an elite flying stunt team called the Shadow Bolts and praise Rainbow Dash’s skills proclaiming her to be the best flyer in Equestria and try to recruit her.

Twilight Sparkle doesn’t need my special sensing abilities to tell that the Shadow Bolts are a trick by Nightmare Moon. She tells the rest of us and we all call out to Rainbow Dash but the leader of the Shadow Bolts glares at us with glowing eyes and causes the mist to thicken, blocking out our view of the other side of the moat.

We can no longer hear or see them but when both sides of the bridge were raised level we knew that Rainbow Dash had not abandoned us in pursuit of the fame her heart desires.
.....

We arrive at the crumbling ruins of the castle and pass through the gate of the castle wall into the main courtyard, the rough iron portcullis that once would have stood strong against intruders lies in rusty fragments at are hooves. I feel my greed, pride and military instincts all telling me I should restore the castle and claim it as my own. Oh yes, I can have such fun with this place, however, I have sealed the powers that would allow me to undertake a project of this scale by my self so I will need to get help from somewhere.

“Nice place but it could use a little work don’t you think so girls? Hee hee hee."

We spend some time exploring the castle before we find The Elements of Harmony in their dormant state, arrange on an odd pedestal that resembles a model solar system. As per Twilight's instructions, we carefully remove them and place them in a circle on the ground before her. Rainbow Dash does a quick count and notices a problem.

“There’s only five of them here where the sixth?” We look to Twilight for an answer and she does not disappoint. “The book said that when the five Elements of Harmony are united a spark will reveal the sixth.”

“Ah spark? What does that mean?” Who knows Applejack? Could you give Twilight and I some peace and quiet whilst the two of us figure this out!”

“Ok Grim” she turns to the others and ushers them into the other room. “come on now they need to concentrate.”

Now that we are alone I turn to Twilight. “Right, this “spark” thing could be literal or some kind of metaphor for something, I suggest we test the literal interpretation first as it will be the easiest to test. We just need to shoot sparks with are horns. If it doesn’t work we can try something else.”
Twilight nods “You make a good point Grim Gill, let’s do it.”

Twilight leans down pointing her horn at the Elements were as I remain standing. Our horns glow with soft white light and a matching glow surrounds the Elements. Before any sparks are formed Nightmare Moon makes her move, her dark mist form encircles the Elements and we seeing her attempt to steal them away and jump into the circle but not before Twilight cries out.

“No!”

This alerts our friends and they rush into the room just in time to see us getting teleported away.

When we re-materialise we find ourselves in another part of the castle. Nightmare Moon is at the other end of the room and she has the stone balls that are the dormant form of the Elements of Harmony behind her and naturally, she’s gives us the stereotypical villains evil laugh.

We turn to each other.
“we need to get to the Elements. I'll hold her off while you figure out how to activate them.”

Twilight doesn’t like my plan. “But Grim you’re low on magic, how are you going to hold her off and even if you were at full power there’s no way you can beat her, she’s an alicorn a normal pony could never compare.”

A normal pony she says, ha! just wait until you meet Starlight Glimmer. My creepy smile turns into a confident one. “Don’t worry about me, I can handle myself in a fight, magic or not. You just focus on the prise.” I turn to face Nightmare Moon, snort and stomp the ground twice with my right front hoof, she is not impressed.

“Your kidding right? You think you can challenge me?” Instead of answering, I charge at her and she accepts my challenge. “Alright then undertaker but it will be your funeral!”

She charges to meet me but just before we collided I leap into the air and throw a punch. Her face meets my centuries worth of martial arts experience, her own forward momentum works against her adding to the force of the blow. A tooth is knocked out of her dislocated jaw and the pain distracts her long enough for me to get in a second blow, this time on her left side which sends her sprawling sideways on the ground. I let her get up and pop her jaw back in place.

“What in Equestria was that? No unicorn should be able to match me in physical strength so easily. What are you?” She’s a little shaken up but seems mostly pissed which isn’t something I can feed off but it will do to keep her attention on me.

I give her a cocky grin “Why me?” I hold up one hoof pointing up in the air “I’m just a humble mortician.” This just enrages her father.

“Do not mock me you foal!”

She shoots a beam of magic at me but I bow my head and let it glance off the top of my hat. It hits the ceiling somewhere behind me punching a giant hole in the roof. If our friends didn’t see the light from the teleporting there’s no way they could have missed that. I mock the dark alicorn some more. "Oh, that looks like it might have tickled.”

She screams at me in her blind rage and shoots more beams of magic my way which are all I either dodged, deflected or catch in my hat, making sure that none go astray and endangered Twilight which goes on until I get a little to cocky. Nightmare Moon’s horn glows as she charges a spell but instead of the magic beam like I’m expecting she teleports to my left and although I can see what she’s about to do I still let her buck me hard in the ribs. My time in the Dragon Ball Z universe has left me used to fighting opponents much stronger than Nightmare Moon but I have momentarily forgotten I hadn’t built this new body to DBZ standards which I am reminded of when I smash through two stone pillars before I’m stopped by the third leaving a large impact crater on it.

This body was only based on Ranma ½ universe standards. Yes, it is a superhuman martial arts series in which the fights often cause massive property damage but even at the height of the series the main protagonist only blew up two small mountains.

This new body has all the speed and strength to match an alicorn but if my two broken ribs are anything to go by I need to do more iron body style training that involves suspending myself from a rope from which I swing myself as hard as I can onto a collision course with a ten ton solid granite boulder suspended from another rope whilst screaming.

“This is a good idea!”

Slamming myself into it as hard as I can until I don’t feel it any more and then repeat the exercise about once a month, of course now it looks like I might not get the chance. Nightmare Moon laughs evilly and comes to stand in front of me, gloating at my predicament before finishing me off.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Not so cocky now are you “humble mortician” did you really think you could beat me? Nightmare Moon, The Princess of Night? Ha! You never stood a chance. Any last words before I send you down to Tartarus?” Yes, cough “Yes I do” I croak out “Oh and what would that be?” she asks. My cocky grin returns and I yell out that old cliché.

“TASTE THE RAINBOW MOTHER FUCKER!”

The rainbow light of the Elements of Harmony comes down and encircles Nightmare Moon. I can feel her fear as she panics in relization that she has lost. Last time the Elements were used against her she was banished to the moon for a thousand years and that was by her sister who could only use them at half power. This time the Elements are at full power and she fears she will be destroyed.
Fortunately for her, she's wrong. When the light fades away little Woona lies unconscious before me surrounded by broken fragments of what was once Nightmare Moon's armour. The Elements have stripped away jealousy, her resent, and her anger towards her sister and her dark powers along with them leaving her as an innocent little foal.

The mane six have yet to notice this as they are to busy admiring their new accessories. Each of them now has a gold necklace containing the element they represent in the form of a jewel in the shape of their cutie mark, except for Twilight's who has a tiara instead.

“Gee Twilight, I thought you were all spouting off a load of hooey but now I reckon we do represent the elements of friendship.” Indeed you do says a regal voice that seems to come from all around us.

Suddenly the room is illuminated by the bright morning sun and the great white alicorn with the aurora coloured mane graces us with her presents, all except Twilight and myself how before Princess Celestia. Twilight runs up to greet her mentor with a quick hug and I haven’t moved from where I sit, leaning against the foot of the pillar on account of my broken ribs.

“Twilight Sparkle my student, I knew you could do it.” But Princess says Twilight “I don’t understand, you told me it was just an old ponytail.”

Princess Celestia shakes her head. "I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of nightmare moon's return and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you had let true friendship into your heart.”

She and Twilight look towards the mares that were Twilight’s new. "And I can see that you did, now if only another will as well.”

Now everyone’s attention is brought to young Luna who comes round and stands up as Princess Celestia walk over to her, she towers over the small dark blue alicorn.

“It has been two thousand years since I have seen you like this. It is time we put our difference behind us and rule together like mother intended for us sister. Will you accept my friendship?”
The younger foal’s lips quiver eyes tear up before she leaps forward to embrace her big sister.“Yes, I accept! I am so sorry, I missed you so much, Celestia.”

Pinkie Pie is overwhelmed by this touching scene that tears stream from her eyes in jets like a fountain for a few seconds before she stops and starts to make her enthusiastic announcement.
“Hey, do you know what this calls for?”

“A doctor!”

The ponies all turn to look at me as I interrupt reminding all of them of my presents. “seriously ladies this is all very touching but I have two ribs that need to be reset.”

......

End of chapter