They didn’t remain in Gra for long. They didn’t have much provision to gather, and it didn’t take long to free the rest of the island, finishing with a small port-turned-base. From this port, Sweetie leaving behind a double to guard Gra and teleporting the ships they left in Grust because none had been left here by Eggman, they sailed to their next destination: Dolhr, one of two nations part of a much larger island south.

Dolhr was… quite special compared to the rest of Archanea. It was an empire, second largest nation behind the Kingdom of Archanea, and it was the home of the Manaketes, the dragons who turned humans to not turn mad.

It was actually founded by the greatest enemy of Archanea: Medeus. Seeing his people persecuted, a very hateful Medeus gathered all the Manaketes of the continent into this very hostile empire before he worked to conquer mankind no less than three times.

Needless to say, the relations between the Manaketes and the rest of Archanea weren’t… very good. Many Manaketes hated humanity for all the horrible things they did to them through the centuries, and in return, humans hated the Manaketes for all the suffering they caused in the three wars.

Still, with Medeus dead, hopefully for good, there was hope that things could start to get better. With Dolhr now being part of the united Archanea, it was a good start.

Despite that, there was quite a number of people among the army not happy about rescuing the Manaketes. Marth quickly reminded them that they had a common enemy, so if they weren’t happy, alright, as long as they continued fighting the badniks. And he made sure to tell everyone to NOT do anything to the Manaketes. Not even insult them. He didn’t want to turn the Manaketes hostile. Well, more hostile than many of them already were toward humans. And the last thing he wanted was for Manaketes to attack them while they were already busy fighting the robots because some idiot(s) did something hurtful to them.

They will still have to keep an eye for Manaketes who may attack them out of hatred without provocation. But killing them will only be a last resort. An ABSOLUTE last resort!

Thankfully, the Manaketes were much less dangerous recently. Bantu, a Manakete allied to Marth, sealed the power of the dragonstones which allowed the Manaketes to temporarily turn back into dragons. So the Manaketes were stuck to using weapons like any human.

And so the army sailed toward Dolhr, quickly approaching its coast.

The army currently found itself separated in multiple ships while traveling the ocean, its sheer size not fit for them all to travel together. Above them, like always, Sweetie Void remained vigilant over the fleet of ships.

On one of the ships, among other troops, was traveling a particular group of the most notable barons and generals of the army, most of their heavy armor stored away for commodity but with some pieces still on in case they needed to put them on quickly in case of an attack.

Forsyth, A Valentian baron, was in the middle of a conversation with his comrade Lukas on the deck when they both heard someone calling everyone in the ship to attention.

“Ok everyone!” Darros, a pirate of Archanea who was currently in charge of the ship, said. ”We need some volunteers to re-organize and move around some supplies. Anyone who thinks they're strong enough, raise your hands.”

Of course, both Forsyth and Lukas raised their hands, as did various others.

After that, they and the other volunteers moved on to get to work, Darros indicating to them where to move what.

“Ale-hop!” Forsyth said as he easily lifted a barrel on his back. ”There we go.”

Lukas does the same. “Let's go,” he says.

They both walked and along the way, they encountered a familiar face.

“Hey, good to see you two!” a fellow baron greeted them.

“Valbar! Good to see you too, friend!” Forsyth greets.

“Indeed, it’s such a relief seeing you alive again,” Lukas says.

“Oh it’s nothing. I was all ready to go out without regrets. That said, now that I got this second chance, I gotta use it to the max now.”

“Well said, fellow resurrected,” another voice said, approaching. The man it belonged to was carrying a barrel on his back too.

“Ah, you were revived too? What's your name?” Valbar asked, curious.

“My name is Horace, Archanean general at your service,” Horace presented himself.

“Archaean, eh? Good,” Valbar said, seeing they have reached where they got to put the barrels down. They all dropped them there and kept talking.

“I was always curious about your continent, wanting to see for myself how it was. Alas, it never came to be due to… certain circumstances.”

“I see. Hopefully once the current war is settled You get the chance to come over,” Horace offered with a smile.

At that moment, two other volunteers arrived with barrels of their own and dropped them along with the others and one of them looked a bit winded.

“C'mon now Roger, this should be light work for people of our standard,” one of them said to the other.

“S-shut it Draug, I'm fine! I'm just… slightly out of form still. But I'm far from over,” Roger said.

“Oh, guys! Hey, come here!” Horace called out, seeing his fellow generals.

Draug and Roger did so, approaching with smiles.

“Horace! You look good. Thank heavens you were able to come back to us. Ah, who are they?” Draug asked, curious about the other users of heavy armor.

The barons and generals walked back to move more cargo, getting the chance to talk and meet each other on the way.

This time, they all had to lift some rather heavy boxes below deck.

Valbar was first, picking up the box with both hands and lifting it over his head. Following him, Lukas and Forsyth managed the same albeit with slightly more difficulty. Next, Draug picked up his as easily as Valbar, while Horace and Roger had needed more wind up to pick up theirs, but were holding them easy enough. Then they all made their travel below deck.

“Man, these boxes sure are heavy,” Forsyth said half-way through.

“They sure are. Still, They’re a nice training if you think about it! We got to stay in shape if we are to move around in our armors,” Valbar said.

“Eh, if you say so…” Forsyth said.

“Come now, it isn't that bad,” Lukas said as he passed Forsyth by.

He frowned, and immediately went on passing Lukas by.

“Easy for you to say. Even when the war for Valentia ended you didn't take a free day, training as if war still went on.”

Lukas passed him by again.

“It’s our duty to always be ready for conflict, no matter if there’s peace.”

Forsyth did the same again.

“Well, sorry for wanting to take things at least a bit slower.”

Then unexpectedly, Draug passed both of them by.

“If you will, I personally believe you both make fair points. It’s important to balance life and duty appropriately.”

Then Valbar passed them all by. “Indeed! Well said my fellow.”

And now Roger was the one to take the lead. ”Huff! Can all of you stop doing that?”

“But you just did the same…” Horace said. He too went and passed Roger.

Sparks flew through the air as all the barons and generals looked at each other.

“...I'm arriving first!” Forsyth said as he sped up, gripping his box with great strength.

“Think again,” Lukas said, doing the same.

“Hey now, we must be careful with these!” Horace said. Despite his words however, he followed suit and tried to pass them both, Roger and Draug following close.

The rest of the volunteers looked perplexed at them, and a few even tried to join them in.

In the end, both Valbar and Draug ended up arriving at the spot nearly at the same time first, with Lukas and Forsyth following suit, Forsyth arriving a bit earlier than Lukas much to the latter's frustration. Then finally Horace and Roger arrived with Roger arriving last.

“Damn…” Roger huffed out.

“Ah… ha ha, did you see that?” Forsyth asked Lukas, his tone smug.

Lukas tsked. ”Don't get ahead of yourself. While you have always been the faster of us two, I still got you beat in other areas.”

Valbar for his part laughed. ”Hahaha! That was a good competition!” He then turned to Draug.”I commend you for putting up a good fight! Archanean Generals sure are tough!” he said, extending his hand to him.

Draug smiled and took his hand. “You Valentian barons aren't bad yourselves.”

They all smiled for a moment.

“Alright people, we are almost done! Keep at it!” Nearby, Darros still managed the volunteers.

“...Hey, y'all up for a rematch race back up?” Horace proposed with a smirk.

Everyone smirked back at him.

As expected, all the ports were destroyed and replaced by complexes producing aquatic vehicles, robots, material, and so on. The whole coast was heavily guarded, so no matter what, the army had to fight to land. They attacked one of the bases and pretty much repeated what happened when they arrived at Grust. From there began the process of freeing Golhr like they freed the other nations until now, base by base.

They started west. The capital was east, near the frontier with Macedon. It meant that the majority of the country will be freed by the time they reach the giant city Eggman certainly built in its place. While Manaketes weren’t many, there were numerous humans who lived in Dolhr. Humans who respected the Manaketes and decided to live and work for Medeus, seeing the dragonkin as the superior species.

As expected, because of how large Dolhr was, it took a few weeks to reach the city. They still had the southeast of the ancient empire to free. All the while, wyverns constantly attacked them from Macedon.

The city itself wasn’t that large compared to the size of the empire. Actually, it was the smallest one encountered until now. And contrary to all the previous cities, this one was finished.

Apparently, there were many barbarians in the mountains of the border between Dolhr and Macedon. It looked like Eggman decided to not bother with them and killed all of them, or the city would be larger. Unless they were roboticized? The army didn’t encounter any roboticized barbarian for now. Maybe they guarded the city. If that was the case, then the army won't bother either and kill them. The barbarians were a nuisance better left dead.

Even without the barbarians, the city was still surprisingly small. While the Manaketes were few in number, they weren’t THAT few.

The traps and obstacles were present again, more numerous. The army was used to them now, so they didn’t worry. It still was more work for Sweetie Void who had less and less doubles to contribute.

There was also the presence of a giant black robot dragon, thrice as big as the roboticized dragons, possessing that destructive energy that promised death if it wasn’t stopped right away.

The Egg Ancalagon

“A robot dragon guarding the dragonkin. Of course,” Jagen said.

Sweetie Void flew toward the dragon in the hope of destroying it before it could attack. She was planning to ram into it and blow it up from the inside.

The dragon slapped her like she was a fly at a speed too fast for almost everyone to follow, sending her crashing several hundred meters away, destroying a few robots and traps.

She groaned as her body twitched. “Ooowww…”

The Egg Ancalagon then opened its mouth and charged energy, ready to fire at the army, only for another Sweetie Void to come and force the mouth closed. The robot barely had time to compute what was about to happen before its head exploded.

Sweetie Void huffed. “Serve you right, you overgrown tin can lizard.”

Another Sweetie Void grinned. “I guess that it got a taste of its own medicine.”

Yet another Sweetie Void giggled. “An explosion of flavor.”

All the Sweetie Voids laughed, even the ones not present.

Thankfully for the army, they were too far to hear the jokes, or many would have groaned.

The battle really began soon after. For once, the barons and generals led the initial charge. They were given by Susie a new device that coated their armor in a shield that should protect against the robots’ energy weapons, and magic by extension.

Yeah, the armors they used weren’t really effective against energy weapons. It was like fighting with cardboard armors against normal weapons. So the barons and generals’ most effective attribute, physical defense, was pretty much useless against the robots, rendering these classes rather ineffective on the battlefield. They really needed this device.

“So, how did she say they worked?” Valbar asked.

“Just tap the Shield Cloak once and it activates,” Lukas answered.

“Remember, the shield lasts one minute, then it needs two minutes to recharge,” Roger said. “We will need to rotate.”

All the others nodded before some of them advanced and began to fight the robots. The Shield Cloak quickly revealed to work very well. The enemies’ energy weapons were only doing minimal damage. Forsyth even took a Meteor in the face and was barely hurt. Usually, he would be on his knees after being hit by one such spell. Eventually, the minute passed, the shield disappeared, and the first line quickly retreated to let place to the second line who activated the device in turn. All the while, Susie was taking notes between punching robots with her armor.

Thanks to that, the army was able to use the usual working strategy of letting the generals and barons gain the attention of the enemy and tank the attacks, allowing less risks of serious injuries or death. Long range badniks tried to do the smart thing and targeted the barons and generals in the back who were waiting for the device to recharge, but mages took care of them with spells like Meteor, and flying units even used the distraction to approach and destroy them quickly.

As the battle continued, they encountered many roboticized Manaketes but, as already explained, they weren’t a problem because they couldn’t transform into dragons anymore. The number of roboticized Manaketes explained why the city was so small. Many of the Manaketes fought back Eggman’s robots and got either killed or roboticized for that. The ones who decided to not fight were a minority.

Keeping an eye on everyone to ensure that nobody ended up killing a roboticized Manakete was impossible. Marth and the others still tried their best.

As expected, there were also many roboticized barbarians. These ones, the heroes didn’t hesitate to kill. The mountains will be safer to traverse.

While the roboticized Manaketes were the ones who had been willing to fight, it didn’t mean that the remaining ones didn’t want to fight, as the heroes eventually found out when they entered the city. When they encountered non-roboticized Manaketes, most of the laters asked them for weapons so they could help. The reason why they didn’t fight until now was because they preferred to wait for a better occasion to push the robots back that wouldn’t result in them becoming slaves or being killed.

None of the Manaketes gave the army a mean look. They all perfectly understood that the enemy of the enemy was a friend, and that they needed their help. The worst the army got were looks of uncertainty. It was clear by how the Manaketes approached the soldiers slowly that they were careful. Some soldiers almost proved them right but were silenced by others before they could say one word.

Once they were given weapons, the Manaketes began to fight the robots, fighting side by side with the humans for the first time in history.

Among these Manaketes was Bantu, a Manakete who allied himself to Marth in the previous two wars. He was also Tiki’s guardian, so he really wanted to make the robots pay for taking her.

With their help, the remaining robots in the city were quickly destroyed, ending the battle.

Marth was surveying the situation as the army calmed down from the fighting. He then spotted a commotion a short distance.

Getting closer to it, Marth realized what he was looking at…

And nearly gave a growl of frustration as he spotted one of the low rank soldiers standing off with a Manakete.

“What are you gonna do, Drake-Blood?” He could hear the soldier ask smugly. “Cut me down?”

“I will, if you don’t stop antagonizing our allies,” Sweetie Void’s voice sounded off from above, causing the two to jump apart in shock.

The soldier pointed at the Manakete, filled with rage. “But, these monsters-!”

“Monsters?” Marth interrupted. “Where do you see monsters? I only see beings of flesh and blood capable of love like you and me.” Marth raised a hand to stop the soldier before he could speak again. “Yes, they caused untold sufferings under Medeus’ reign, and it can’t be forgiven, but this is no reason to start acting like savages. And you seem to forget that people like YOU are why the Manaketes were so hostile in the first place. I thought that I already told you before the battle: I will not allow any name-calling or any form of violence or provocation toward our new allies. If I hear anything, then depending on the severity, the culprit will be accordingly punished.” He glared at the soldier. “You are lucky that we are severely in need of men for this war, or I would have made you leave this army. Instead, I will think of something else. Until then, you are dismissed.” He looked around at the soldiers who were watching. “This is a reminder! Be sure to spread the word!”

He saw a Manakete who looked smugly at the humans. “This is also the case for the Manaketes. While you are in this army, I don’t want to hear any incidents. We have a common enemy, so let’s remain civil while we work together. And hopefully, by the end of this war, our two peoples will be close to form a long lasting friendship. Bantu, I count on you to keep an eye.”

“Of course.”

“Me and my doubles will also be here in case anything happens,” Sweetie Void said.

“Thank you.”

With that, the incident was closed.

It was only the beginning however. Despite the warning, more such incidents happened here and there, both from human and Manakete origin. By the end of the day, Marth wanted to bash his skull against a wall.

It promised some long weeks to come.

Sweetie Void looked in the distance in reflection.

This all was too similar to the tales of how ponies used to be before the foundation of Equestria, and even that only resolved ponies' issues with their own kind. Even today there were still some that misjudged other races like dragons, changelings and so on, though Twilight made a great effort in amending this.

“Mmm, we are gonna have to work this all out going forward considering the Alliance has countless species all around…” she mused to herself. "I can only hope there's no incidents like that when the military exhibition comes around.”

Author's Note

The last scene has been written by the three of us.