cold winds ran through Ponyville, the town was silent and in ruins, the Everfree Forest was slowly overtaking the boundaries of the town, the only structure still standing tall and mostly undamaged was Twilight's castle, around it was a large crystal wall with an army set up inside it. On the outside of the wall was a small number of creatures on guard, standing on either side of the only entrance facing the town stood Maud Pie and Spike, They were wearing matching black armor with Luna's Cutie Mark on the chest, signifying them as the Nocturnal units of the army, they both look exhausted and worn out.

"Where the hell is our replacement?" Spike asked with a yawn as he tried to stretch the sleep away, "We were supposed to switch off over an hour ago,"

"They're probably still sleeping," Maud said in monotone irritation as she looked out at the wrecked Ponyville, "You know, 'cause it's so unacceptable for us to be 5 minutes late one time, but they get to make us miss our dinner just so they can laze about for a while longer," Maud took a breath before calling out loudly "Hey! Where's our replacement?"

"They'll be here," One of the guards patrolling the upper wall replied "There in the shower just lighten up and-"

"Fuck you," Maud shot back, "The last time one of the Noctuirals was in the Shower for too long you dragged his ass out and made the entire Night unite stand guard in their pajamas!" They could all hear the guards laughing at the memory and began groaning in irritation.

"I hate this," Maud decided.

"But your determination to kill Grogar exceeds your hate for the noble's currently acting as the Day unite," Spike said simply

"Maybe a few months ago," Maud replied, "Grogar may have destroyed my Family's home, but he never covers my bed in Honey and Fire Ants,"

"Oh shit I forgot about that," Spike said as he leaned against the wall, doing his best to stay awake "they filled mine with ticks and rotting fish, not nearly as bad thanks to the scales, although I did have to sleep on the floor for a few weeks until the stench was washed out,"

"Hey," A voice called, Spike moved away from the door to look up, hoping it was their replacement and was instead met with a stream of ice-cold water followed by a bucket on his head "That should help you wake up," The Guard above said as his friends laughed "you'll be covering the day shift, your replacements seemed to have hurt their back and can't work today,"

"We're not deft or blind," Maud cried back as she pulled the bucket off Spike's head "I know your one of the guards who cover this spot, get your ass down here and do your fucking job!" Maud didn't receive an answer and instead grabbed jumped back to the cover of the wall as more ice water was poured over the side onto Spike, who stood his ground to avoid getting his friend wet and instead sat down shivering in defeat. He grabbed a few sticks once the water had stopped and set them on fire for warmth, not wanting to melt or warp his armor with fire.

"The second I get a chance to see Any Princess I am making so many complaints," Spike chattered through his teeth as he set up another fire for Maud to huddle up to as the cool breeze of early winter began hitting them.

"Stupid high security," Maud said as she tried to open the gate and found it was still locked, knowing there was no way back into the base she tried her best to warm herself with the fire "Can't even so much as send a letter to my own Sister to tell her how we're being treated out here," the duo did their best to warm-up and prepare for the hell that was staying up for both the rest of the day and the night.

Celestia sat in silence around the Map room that had been converted into a war room, The other Princesses all sat in seats around her, Luna was on her right and Cadance was on her left, Twilight was next to Luna. The only Princess missing was the young Flurry heart, who was in hiding with her father and most of the Elements of Harmony in Discords world to prevent their enemy from using any of them as a hostage or from killing Them. The only Elements Present were Rainbow Dash as the active leader of the Wonder bolts, Applejack who was doing her best to keep the army fed, and Pinkie Pie who had refused to leave and was doing her best to keep utter despair away.

"Your sure it's him?" Cadance asked as Rainbow reported in.

"Oh yeah, Grogar's making his move, he's set up his own base on the other side of Ponyville, those monsters from the other day were just him announcing his arrival,"

"How many monsters?" Luna questioned as looked at the map.

"A lot, now I know there are a lot of soldiers out there but you should probably make sure only the most capable are on the front line, I've caught the Day soldiers basically torturing the Night ones, you really need better officers out there, all those snobs and nobles are just ignoring it, I didn't get a good look but I think the Night unites for the front gate are still on duty,"

Luna frowned and looked to Celestia, who looked less than pleased about this.

"If Grogar makes his move while we have exhausted guards..."

"It's time to make our move," Celestia decides as she got to her hooves "Mobilize all Day unties, and make sure any Night Unties still active are sent to the mess hall to eat, we'll punish the Day unites later but at the moment we need to make our move before Gorgar makes-" The loud cry of a monster cut her off and she turned to the door before saying loudly "GO! Go now!"

As the Princesses and the attending Elements began mobilizing Spike and Maud watched as a Three-headed Hydra came marching proudly towards the base.

"The gate still locked?" Spike asked as he and Maud stood up.

"Yep," Maud confirmed.

"Think they'll open it?" Spike asked curiously, the sound of panic above them telling them that the archers would never be able to get a clear shot thanks to all the morons who had clumped up to the top of the wall to torment the front gate.

"If anything they'll probably fully lock it down," Maud noted casually, the sound of movement through the door confirming what she had just predicted as the sound of the wooden door barricaded falling into place was heard.

"Well, let's just hope they don't dump more wa-" Spike fade into quiet, and Maud looked at him, her curiosity at why he had stopped dead in his verbal tracks was quickly sated and replaced with panic as soon as she saw what had shut him up, Spike had pulled out his sword and found it had been replaced with a wooden one, "You have got to be fucking joking," He said as he looked at it and turned to his friend, who unsheathed hers and found the same thing.

"They took our swords?" Maud demanded as she looked at it, she hadn't bothered to pull the weapon out in months due to lack of action during the night and angrily stomped out into the open and yelled loudly. "You jackasses replaced our swords with wooden ones?" She demanded, causing the panic up top to quickly stop as she gained an audience "How long have we been guarding the base with toys?" She cried out "Are you all fucking brain dead?"

"It was just a joke," One of the guards called back "It's your fault for-"

"for what?"Spike demanded angrily as he joined Maud in yelling at them "for not daily checking to see if the weapons we used to prevent a sneak attack in the middle of the night had been stolen and replaced with toys?" Spike chucked the sword over the wall as hard as he could and watched it shatter into splinters against the wall, Maud threw her's with a little more force and accuracy and managed to hit one of the ones she had seen dumping water on them in the face. Maud turn to Spike and offered him her fist, Spike made a fist of his own, and the two fist-bumped.

"See you in hell?" Spike asked,

"See you in hell," Maud agreed as they turned towards the approaching Hyrda and charged at it empty-handed, hoping to at least distract it long enough for someone with actual power to come and stop it.

Spike was the first one to get the hydra's attention thanks to a ball of fire, something the large sea serpent-like creature did not appreciate, one of its three heads lashed out, and Spike only just managed to avoid its jaws, as the other two heads joined in the hunt for Spike, Muad ran in undetected and punched it in the leg.

Months of poor nourishment, lack of sleep, and constant torment had sapped her of her strength, but she still had enough to make one of the side heads lose interest in Spike and angrily go after her. Maud stepped back as it lashed at her and jumped just as it arrived, landing on top of its head, and began punching the top of its head with as much force as she could with one hand while using the other to grip its eyelid, the head began violently lashing around trying to get her off, She managed to stay on thanks to her grip on its eyelid and changed directions, now directing her punches into its eye in an attempt to blind it.

While Maud was riding one of the heads Spike did his best to follow her lead and jumped onto the rightmost head and
dug his fingers into the hydra's skin, but instead of lashing the head positioned itself towards the other head and Spike had to Fall Back as the two heads slammed a one another, they instantly changed directions and whipped around as they sent Spike into the air and opened their mouths, the rightmost one catching Spike in mid-air and chomping down. Before it could begin chewing Spike bit into the creatures tongue and began screaming, spewing out as much fire as he could, the head went wild and tried with all its might to spit Spike out before giving in to the flames and falling to the ground, Spike still letting out a torrent of flames. As Spike's head went down Maud was now standing on firm ground, her hydra-head lay beaten and bleeding out next to her, Spike rolled out of his head once he saw the ground and quickly found his armor was all but gone, he shook the flames out and Maud walked to him as she pulled a rolled-up cloth from her belt and tossed it to him, Spike unrolled it and quickly covered his shame with the simple purple robe, using the rope that it had been wrapped in like a belt. The Two turned their attention to the middle head and found it was staring blankly ahead, showing no signs of movement.

"It's in shock," Spike realized after a moment "With the other two heads dead it has full control of the body and it's overwhelmed," The two were about to attack when it simply fell backward, Maud walked up to its foot and put her hand on the ankle after a second she sighed

"overstimulated," She said with relief in his voice "It just had a heart attack, guess we aren't going to hell today," She made her way back to her friend so they could head back when they heard a laugh.

"What a fun choice of words," Grogar said as he walked out from behind the creature, more monstrous screams could be heard in ponyville and the trio watched as many large monsters began converging behind Grogar.

"I just want you to know I love you," Spike said as he prepared himself "See you actual hell this time,"

"Love ya to buddy," Maud agreed as she clenched her fist
"Let's be as big an inconvenience as we possibly can," they declared in unison as they gave a final fist-bump before running at Grogar.

Celestia frowned as she looked at the carnage, hundreds of small monsters had broken through the front gate and were attacking, Luna was at the entrance of the Night unite's underground sleeping quarters and was blocking it off with magic, only those wearing the right armor could get thought it, Twilight and Cadance were busy with the three elements keeping the larger monster's at bay, she waited for it, she knew he was coming. At the sound of wood breaking she turned and watched Grogar walk into her room, in one hand he was dragging a mare in the Night unit armor, in the other was Spike. She wanted to help them but she could see just from looking at them that they were both long dead.

"A lot of people are gonna be mad about him," Celestia said as she looked at Spike before turning to the other one, "And I imagine she had a family waiting for that will never fully recover from the news," Celestia looked at Grogar, who didn't say anything, just stood there smiling smugly. "Why'd you drag them up to me?" She demanded as she motioned to the fight taking place below "Surly you had a juice harvest to choose from,"

"These two attacked me," Grogar said "knowing full well they would die, even said that their only goal was to be as big of an inconvenience they could, just wanted to show you the faces of the first one's who died because of your pride," Celestia bit her lip as Grogar continued talking "I offered to end this months ago, all I had where two simple demands...well that's not entirely true but the only creature it would have inconvenience was you, instead you declined and now these two, and so many more are dead," Celestia stared him down and lit his horn, "Go ahead," he said, dropping the corpses "Kill me, but I currently have hundreds of thousands of monsters laying in wait around every single equestrian town, city, and village, Kill me and the signal I'm magically emits cuts off and all of them go savage, you may win, but your country will die and some other villain will take advantage," Celestia cut of her magic and stared at Grogar in silence. "Oh don't look at me like that, it's not like I'm demanding you let me rut you or something, just a vial of blood is all I need from you personally, although the demands have changed,"

Celestia stood without response for a moment, looking at Spike and the unknown mare before looking up at Grogar. "What are they?" She asked.

"First," Grogar said, holding up one finger "I want you to surrender all control of Tartarus to me alone and let me rule over it," he smiled "The second one is the only new one, I want ownership of all the souls who died in this battle, just so you can't shove all these deaths off by telling yourself they got a peaceful afterlife, no...no there all going to spend the rest of eternity in Tartarus because of you, And finally I want a vial of your blood and some of your magic so that I may make an heir for myself, one that you won't be able to fight against without any attachments, one that will be both my and your biological child," Grogar held out his hand as his horns began glowing "Do we have a deal?" Celestia held out her hand and shook his.

"We do," She agreed as she felt the ownership of Tartarous fade from her soul, instantly all the monsters outside turned into ash, being sent to Tartarous by Grogar, Celestia watched as Spike and the unknown one jolted up, their souls being forced back into their corpses.

"Um?" Maud said as she looked at her cold dead hands and put them over the large empty hole in her belly that was devoid of organs, "What the actual fuck?" Spike's head moved around but he wasn't looking at anything, his eyes having been crushed.

"Great now I'm blind and dead," He said angrily as Maud reached out to him and helped him up. Spike moved his head around and grumbled, "What's happening, Maud are you there? can you still see?"

"Princess Celestia just sold me your souls," Grogar said simply "Because she cares more about her own image than letting those who died for her have a peaceful afterlife," before either of them could respond he raised his hands and they dissolved into ash as they were sent to Tartarous. Grogar turned to the Princess and held out his hands, "Now then, as for the final item on our deal,"

Celestia sat in silence in the War room, she had a few bandages around her right arm hiding stitches and she was physically weak after having given up Tartarous and having been temporarily drained of magic, around her sat the princesses, none of them were having a good time, Pinkie was sobbing into the table with Rainbow dash doing her best to comfort her morning friend by saying that both Maud and Spike had gone out as heroes.

"So we lost," Celestia said in despair, "We lost the war, we lost Tartarous, and we lost a lot of soldiers," She frowned as she held her tongue, not willing to admit to selling the souls of the fallen to Grogar knowing it would only make the despair worse for those who had lost loved ones, "We must inform the soldiers and the rest of Equestria, the War is over, and the enemy was victorious," The room began emptying out, leaving only Celestia and Luna alone.

"I told you," Luna said looking at her sister, "I told you as soon as he made the offer the first time that if you didn't give in he'd make you given in to worse demands,"

"Well, why didn't you accept them then?" Celestia bit back angrily.

"I tried," Luna said angrily "But he made it very clear that it was either your child or war and in the end, he got both,"

"I couldn't just let him-" Celestia attempted to say only to be cut off by Luna.

"I told you, he told you, Discord fucking showed up and told you there was no winning this and you still chose war!" Luna stood up and headed to the door "You chose to let all of them die," She added before opening the door and leaving, slamming the door behind her, Celestia sat along in the room, rubbing at the wound on her arm that had been used to create a child.

Grogar made his way down the stairs of death, closing the opening behind him as he did so, in his arms was a bundle of cloth holding his newly born child, now being the ruler of Tartarous he lit his horns and teleported to where he had sent the ones he had hand-selected to be his personal minions, upon arriving he found the long empty cages of Tirek and Cozy glow, sitting in wait for him was Cerberus, and being forced to bow to him where Maud and Spike.

"Hello," he said casually, visibly startling Spike.

"Oh sweet Celestia, I'm actually blind," He said as he moved his head around in a vain attempt to look at his surroundings "And this place is super echoey, where is he?"

"Directly in front of us," Maud informed him, and Spike turned his head so he was mostly facing Grogar and greeted him.

"Hi um...Lord Grogar?" he said, unsure how to address the owner of his soul.

"Lord will do," Grogar agreed "Didn't think your lack of eyes would persist after death, I'll have to find some way to fix that, but in honor of knowingly sacrificing yourselves just to try and slow me down you shall be the head's of my new court, first things first I'll need to fix this place up to my liking, now then, Rise before your lord and come say hello to your mini-lord," Grogar moved the blankets and allowed Maud to see his daughter, she was blue in color, her mane was white with a streak of Pink running down the middle, she had a dark Blue unicorn horn, she had Grogar's ears and his set of bottom snaggle teeth, she had large wings and looked more like a foal than a buck. Upon her opening her eyes they saw that she had Magenta eyes and when the baby started laughing and kicking out she saw that the foal's hooves were the same shade of dark blue as her horns.

"How lovely," Maud said before noticing the confused look on Spike's eyeless face.

"It's a baby alicorn, "she whispered to him, and Spike looked even more confused.

"How long have we been down here?" He demanded, once again trying to look around.

"About an hour?" Maud guessed as Grogar looked at his daughter.

"Let's see, now for the name, I'll name you Selina, great name right?" He looked over to Minions with a happy grin.

"Yeah, good name," Maud agreed. "A Very fitting name,"

"I dunno what she looks like but I bet it works wonders,"

"Good sucking up," Grogar congratulated before turning his attention back to his daughter, "Now, time to get to work,"

Author's Note

Foal - baby pony
Buck - baby ram

Enjoy this story, I'll be posting this and one other chapter, just a little something to keep you at my readers entertained while I work on other stuff