In the span of a second, the two unicorns found themselves back in Canterlot. It was dark outside; the sky was a dark shade of blue with only the moon to lit it up. Though they swore they could see multiple black dots above the city. It took a while, but Shining caught up to what was going on.

“Twiley... I believe these are changelings in the sky.” he started before raising his voice so that everypony around him could hear his words. “Canterlot is being invaded by changelings!”

Large stomps came from behind and out of the shadows arrived the Dark Lord himself. “Took a while for them to show up.” He walked in front of the two unicorns, throwing his arms up at the sky. “The changelings are here! Time to throw the party!”

Shining wanted to cast the magical barrier that will keep Canterlot safe, but Balgo turned around and flipped him off, simultaneously overriding his spell with his magic. “Ain’t gonna happen. This city is under my rule, and I say I want this war.”

The changelings above began to dive into the streets of Canterlot as balls of flame. The Scalers took their weapon and began to charge at the invaders. Balgo was about to join the fray before he noticed something in the sky. He formed binoculars with his fingers and looked up.

“I see an Alduin. Oh! And I see one alico- no two, two alicorns.” Grinning, he leaped at the nearby changelings in excitement. If Alduin and the Princesses were here, then that would imply that the bearers of the Elements of Harmony as well as the two other Guardians were present too. It was going to be one hell of a battle, and Balgo was going to have the time of his life.

He grabbed one of the insectoids and bit down on its head, tearing it off before eating it. The sounds of the bones crunching under the strength of his jaw was gratifying to him. He then took a hold of another one and broke its spine simply by bending it hard enough. Next, he used the broken changeling’s body as a bat, swinging it at the others gleefully. His massacre was quickly interrupted by a powerful magical beam hitting him in the back of the head, causing the Devil to fall to the ground.

He quickly got back on his feet, spinning around in surprise to see a newcomer.

“I had meticulously planned this invasion for months, and now it’s all thrown down the drain because of you! I guess I’ll just have to take Canterlot by force.”

It was Queen Chrysalis, angry that her plan had been spoiled. Balgo looked at her unimpressed.

“Okay then, fight me. The strongest is who will get to keep the city.”

Watching the scene unfold, Shining leaned in closer to his sister. “Twiley! While he’s distracted with the changeling queen, we should retrieve the Elements of Harmony.”

Twilight now remembered that the Elements were stored in a highly secure room in Canterlot’s castle. It was their one and only chance to take them back and use them on Balgo. “Got it.” she replied.

The two began to run away, which caught the attention of the emperor. “I see... the game has already started.” his mouth contorted into a smirk. “They’ll need that head start.” he said before turning his attention back on the queen.

Now running as fast as they could, the siblings avoided the changelings crashing into the streets of the city as they made their way towards the castle. They couldn’t afford to waste any time fighting the invaders, if they could just get their hooves on the Elements, they would be able to end it all. The changelings that did try to get in their way were met with a brutal retaliation.

They were barely slowed down by the insectoids, and strangely enough, no Scalers paid any attention to them. Some would run past them, completely ignoring their presence while others would throw quick glances their way before chuckling and moving towards the fight. This was starting to weird Twilight out.

“What do they find amusing?”

Shining had no idea, nor a hypothesis. “Frankly, I don’t know. Don’t pay too much attention outside of our objective, Twiley.”
She nodded and kept her eyes on the road ahead. Eventually, they reached the castle’s garden. Just a couple of minutes of running and they would reach the Eleme-

The siblings came to a halt. Somehow, in front of them was Balgo. It seemed impossible considering he was already locked in battle with the queen of the changelings.

“I got someone to take over the fight for me, if you were wondering how.” he started, then he simply pointed at the stair to his left. “Twilight, you go get the Elements of Harmony. Shining, you’ll distract me so she can complete her mission. I know how it goes.” he said in a rather mocking tone.

Twilight wasn’t sure how to get past this monster, so she turned to her brother but noticed a certain look on his face that made her stress spike up. He looked ready to fight Balgo. It would be a battle that can only end one way.

“Shining, you can’t fight him alone! We’ll have to get around him somehow!” she pleaded, but her brother wasn’t going to let up.

“It’s no use, if we fight him both at once, we’ll just perish together. You’ll have to do this alone. I’m sorry, Twiley...”
Twilight kept on staring at her brother in disbelief. No way was she going to let her BBBFF die like this. Before she could protest even further, Balgo spoke up.

“You can’t always rely on your big brother, Twilight. You haven’t been relying on him before, you shouldn’t rely on him now. Go on now; the fate of Equestria lies on your shoulders.”

Faced with uncertainty, Twilight remained there, unable to make a decision. It wasn’t until Shining Armor hugged her that she finally found the strength to move. “Please, be careful Shining.”

He looked at his sister with affection. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to die today.”

Balgo raised an arm proudly. “That’s the spirit, lad!”

Twilight Sparkle ran up the stairs to her right, making sure not to look behind. She had to remain focussed on retrieving the Elements, no matter what.

“Captain of the Royal Guard. Great protector of Canterlot. Married to an alicorn. My, that’s a mighty impressive lineage; the children have risen to greatness.” started Balgo while moving back and forth. “You won’t be a disappointment; I can already see it.”

Shining stayed silent. After all, his one and only goal was to buy her sister enough time to retrieve the Elements of Harmony. Balgo quickly caught on to it, as judging by his look.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” The Scaler formed a portal on the floor and jumped in it. A large shadow appeared below the stallion and he quickly realised that Balgo was now above him. He dove out of the way just in time to avoid the Devil’s stomp.

Shining Armor casted a fireball from his horn and hurled it at his opponent. To combat this spell, Balgo shot out a powerful stream of water from his hands. It obliterated the fireball and was going straight for the stallion. He formed a magical barrier around him. The stream smashed against the barrier, cracking it but it wasn’t strong enough to break it completely. The most worrying thing for him was that the water completely blocked his sight on Balgo. All he could see was the water hitting against his barrier, until it suddenly stopped. Right as he could finally make out what was outside of his barrier, he saw Balgo inches away from him, staring at him with a large, malicious smile on his face.

Lifting his fist up, the Devil punched the barrier with more than enough power behind it to obliterate it. Shining Armor was launched back by the shockwave the punch had produced. He landed on his hooves just in time to see Balgo clapping his hands together with enough strength to create an even stronger shockwave. The unicorn teleported out of harm’s way, taking a look back to see the shockwave demolishing the ramparts around the castle.

“Nice reflexes, why don’t we take it up a notch?” Balgo formed two large balls with his dark energy, chucking both of them at Shining Armor to which he deflected them both with telekinesis. The balls fell on the ground, now being half buried due to their immense weight. The Scaler leaned forward with anticipation, which caused the stallion to take another look at the attack he had previously deflected.

The balls were glowing brighter, almost as if... they were going to explode. With barely any time to react, Shining leaped forward just as the projectiles exploded. The detonation launched him higher in the air just as Balgo jumped up to reach him. The Scalers entire body was facing away from the stallion, until his head turned 180 degrees, his mouth preparing to fire a destructive beam of dark energy.

“Peek-a-boo!” Balgo fired his beam at his opponent. Just as the attack was about to reach Shining, he created a portal in front of him to teleport the beam right back at the Devil. The impact created another shockwave that knocked both fighters back to the ground.

Shining Armor struggled to get back on his hooves, especially since the explosion was dangerously close to him. Balgo landed on his feet, lots of blood and chunks of flesh dripping from his face. He slowly lifted his head to reveal the damage done by his own attack. The left side of his face was completely torn apart, his bloodied skull now fully visible. He grinned as he looked at the stallion, though he did not appear angry in the slightest.

“Why, that’s very good! Yes, I’m starting to like you, boy!” he said, his voice showing more excitement than before. He took out a large deck of cards from his tuxedo and began flipping through them with expertise. “But, to defeat me; you’ll require far more skill than that.” At blinding speed, he threw the cards one by one at Shining Armor.

The stallion formed another barrier in front of him to block the incoming cards, but every card that struck the shield would simply move off to his rear and stab him in his hind legs. It was too late to do anything about his rear for now, there were too many cards piercing his skin and muscles, leaving him unable to stand.

He collapsed on the floor, panting while Balgo slowly approached him. The Scaler pulled out a handgun from his top hat and pointed it at the stallion. Shining may not know what the weapon in Balgo’s hand was, but he knew it was meant to kill him. The whole world now froze around him as he realised this was where he would meet his end. He lowered his head in acceptance of his fate.

However, Balgo didn’t take the shot, he was still standing over him with the gun in hand but remained motionless. After a while, he lifted his free hand up to the mangled side of his face and began to rub it carefully. He then lowered his hand and looked at the blood on it. A few seconds later, he dropped the gun on the floor and smiled at the stallion. Surprisingly, it wasn’t an arrogant smile, but a smile that showed respect.

“Admirable performance, though I'm afraid I must go after your little sister now. Don’t worry, if she’s as good as you, she’ll be able to win.” Balgo teleported himself away, leaving Shining all by himself, bleeding on the floor alone.

Twilight Sparkle was making good progress, now being in Canterlot’s castle, she just had to reach the chamber in which the Elements of Harmony were stored in. The whole place was dark, only lit up by the moonlight traversing the windows. Suddenly, the corridor in front of her closed in on itself, leaving a wall in the form of a maelstrom blocking her path. A familiar demonic laughter erupted behind her and she spun around to see Balgo on the far end of the corridor, his fists glowing with dark energy.

“You’re going nowhere!” He shouted mockingly before running straight for her, though not at his full speed, it looked more like a jog to the unicorn. Thankfully, to her left was a door that led to another corridor of the castle. She opened the door and slammed it behind herself, though it barely slowed Balgo down as he simply obliterated it by slamming his whole body through it. The Scaler’s eyes were now glowing purple in the dark, with purple smoke coming from his mouth to accompany this evil appearance.

Twilight noticed that she was distancing herself from her pursuer. The Devil noticed it and cackled as he lifted his fist up, now glowing with dark energy. The loud sound of stones sliding off the floors got the unicorn to look forward and she was shocked to see the walls of the castle closing on themselves, now sealing the path. A crack in the wall to the right of the sealed corridor slowly turned into a door leading to who knows where.

Twilight was terribly confused and frightened at what was happening before her very eyes. It looked like Balgo had full control over this entire place. With no other choice, she chose to take the door that had just appeared. On the other side was a large staircase that from the looks of it, was going on forever. Around the stairs was nothing but a black void.
The stomps of Balgo’s feet hurried her to start climbing the infinite staircase. The steps were too small for the Scaler, forcing him to climb them on all fours. He bellowed like an alligator as he was closing the distance. Twilight was slowing down, her legs tiring themselves from all this climbing. She looked back at her pursuer to notice he too was slowing down, but not out of fatigue. He was matching her speed no matter what, his grin widening as he was catching up to his prey.

It became apparent that Balgo was just toying with her. Could she even reach the Elements of Harmony, or would he just kill her once she did just to watch get her hopes up? Balgo was terrifyingly close to the unicorn now, his mouth unhinging to reveal his sharp teeth while his eyes turned completely black. Something inside his throat was glowing brightly in a mixture of blue and green. Twilight swore she could now hear multiple voices whispering to her. The things they whispered varied wildly, but most of them told her to get out while she still could.

One of the voices however, was all but too familiar to her. Celestia’s voice called out to her from Balgo’s gaping mouth, yelling at her to run away. Twilight’s breath became more erratic, her fears growing bigger and bigger.

“Cowardice doesn’t get you far!” The Devil’s voice was extremely deep, accompanied by many other strange and otherworldly sounds. The strong wind that came from it finally sparked some movement in Twilight, now having found the strength to move again. She spun around and noticed something below the staircase, a floating path that led to a door similar to those in the castle. It was a steep drop, but with magic, she could make that jump without any injuries.

Just as Balgo was about to grab her hooves, she leaped off from the stair and used a levitation spell to prevent any damage to her legs. Balgo’s mouth closed, though still remained in an ominous smile as he watched her going through the door.

“She’s doing good... Perhaps, she’ll reach the final stage of the game.” His smile grew wider. “I’m starting to understand why Celestia placed so much faith in her.”

The changelings kept on raining down on Canterlot, which was especially bad for Shining Armor. Immobilised and gravely injured, all it would take to take him down was a small pack of changelings coming his way. His injuries were weighing down his magic.

Multiple changelings crashed around him, pulling themselves out of the small crater they had produced. The stallion had no other choice but to ready himself for battle. The changelings quickly spotted him and charged in unison. His horn started to glow as he clenched his bloodied teeth, ready to take the beating.

A spear suddenly impaled one of the changelings, causing the others to stop their advance. Dozens of spears rained down on them, killing everyone but Shining Armor who was spared from the rain of death. He looked at the massacre in surprise, the trajectory of the spears was all meticulously calculated as evidence by the fact that not a single one landed near him.
“Looks like the big guy spared your life. That’s quite surprising, he rarely does that.”

Shining quickly looked at where the spears came from and saw Aruba, floating above him. The genie slowly descended until he felt like he was close enough to the wounded unicorn. “Let me guess... you’re Shining Armor?”

Shining stared at the Scaler incredulously, then answered. “Y-Yes, that is me.” He looked back at the dead changelings. “Why did you help me?”

“Why?” Aruba whipped out his pipe and took a puff. “Because Balgo respects you enough to let you live. It would be insulting if you were to die mere seconds after he left.”

Shining examined the cards lodged in his skin, the damage they’ve caused was nasty. He was bleeding a lot. “It would be nice if you were to get me some medical attention. I’m bleeding out. Surely you wouldn’t want that to happen?” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t play Mr. Smartass with me. I was going to heal you anyway, just stay still.” Aruba opened his box and out of it shot out a trail of light. The genie weaved the light around his arms before he pointed them at the stallion. The trail left his arms and shot straight at Shining, enveloping his entire body in an instant.

As soon as the light faded from his body, Shining felt his strength returning. He stood up, shaking his hooves just to see if they were fully healed. As soon as he was done, he made a dash towards the castle only to be stopped by the genie.
“Sorry knight in shining armour; you can’t go there. Balgo is currently having a ball if you know what I mean. I must make sure absolutely NO ONE interrupts it or else there will be consequences for the both of us.” explained the genie in a voice that sounded much less patient than before.

“For... the both of us?” Shining asked, intrigued yet feeling somewhat nervous.

“You don’t want to see Balgo angry. I have, and I wish I didn’t.”

Now the corridors were spinning around, gravity was constantly changing and Balgo, was moving rather slowly. Twilight Sparkle struggled to distance herself from her godly pursuer. He raised his hands in the air, his eyes flashed a dark purple. The statues littering the halls began to strike whenever the unicorn would be close to them.

Then, the cord holding the chandeliers on the ceiling would snap and she’d have to dodge the falling objects. Balgo was slowly but surely accelerating, quite the worrying sight since the whole world seemed to shatter behind him. It was abundantly clear to Twilight that she was no longer in Canterlot’s castle, she was in his world now.

She could see something in the distance. Just on the other side of this unusually large hallway was the door leading to the Elements of Harmony. She unconsciously smiled at this relieving sight. Just as she got closer to the door, she felt something strange. A brief look behind her revealed that the whole castle went back to normal, except for the fact that the Devil was still hot on her trails.

However, Twilight remembered that this door in particular was sealed with Celestia’s magic to prevent the Elements from being stolen. There was no way a unicorn could force it open. Nonetheless, she accelerated in the meager hope that she would somehow be able to unlock it.

Oddly enough, now that she was just a few meters away from it, Twilight noticed that the magical locks on the door were busted open, laying on the floor. In fact, the door was heavily damaged, and by the looks of it; it was caused by blunt force. Balgo bellowed as he picked up the pace.

With one swift motion, Twilight flung the door open and finally arrived at the Elements of Harmony. She stopped right in front of them, catching her breath before letting out a proud smile. Her feeling of victory quickly dissipated when she noticed something extremely worrying; the Element of Magic, her Element, was nowhere to be seen. She looked around frantically, until Balgo walked inside, blocking the one and only exit out of there.

“Something’s missing? Yeah, probably. You should have seen it coming, what with the broken padlock and damaged door.”
Twilight spun around to face the tyrant. “You've rigged your game, Balgo! I never had any chance to win from the get go!”
Balgo shook his head in amusement. “No, you DO have a chance of winning. It’s just that the game isn’t quite over yet.” He looked at the ceiling with a smug expression. “You’re quite good at concealing yourself Smithy. Why don’t you come on down and make yourself useful to Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight, surprised, looked upward and saw the Scaler dropping down. He appeared terribly nervous before his master. “Make myself useful to her?”

Balgo nodded methodically. “Yes, it’ll be awfully nice if you could take the Elements of Harmony to their respective owners while Twilight and I go for round 2.”

The unicorn’s eyes widened in surprise. She didn’t expect Balgo to actually do this. It would only be a detriment to him in the long run, though he didn’t seem to care. Smithy remained idle for a moment, thinking about the situation before finally deciding to do as his master said. He took the Elements of Harmony, but just before he left, he looked at Twilight just to make sure she was fine with it.

“Will you really give them to my friends?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes, I'm... on your side. At least that’s what I hope.” Smithy glanced nervously at Balgo. The latter looked at him with approval.

“Don’t worry about it! I’m not gonna bite you or anything, Smithy. In fact, even after all this is said and done; you can resume your post as my personal bodyguard. After all, isn’t all this just a vacation?”

That last sentence made Twilight’s blood boil. Balgo called this a vacation? Murdering her mentor was just part of a “vacation”? Masquerading as her brother was just part of his vacation? Taking over Canterlot was just for his vacation?

The Devil, quite perceptive as he was, noticed the unicorn’s growing anger. “Oh yeah! That’s the spirit, kid! And let me tell ya; you’re gonna need it, for the next part is where the fun is at.”

Smithy quickly left the scene, leaving the two all alone now. Balgo’s eyes turned black as he began to laugh. His cackles echoing through the entirety of Canterlot. The whole world began to twist and turn for Twilight. Multiple screams of agony erupted from the jaw of the Devil as everything began to fade to black, though the screams were not his.

“Let’s see if you can find the Element of Magic in the darkest place known to all mortals! Come forth to my domain Twilight Sparkle. Come and challenge the old, powerful Balgo in Hell!”

A large portal formed behind the Scaler. Dashing forward, he grabbed Twilight by the throat and pulled her into the portal while laughing menacingly.

Author's Note

Remember when I said that there is only 5 chapters remaining? Well, not exactly; i've cut up most of them in half just so i can post more frequently. I'll try my best to make the chapters shorter, but more abundant.