Guardians of Equestria : The Emperor's March

Silver Spoon had been waiting impatiently for the moment the guards would leave their post near the Ever-free Forest. She would use this opportunity to go into the woods to seek her friend and finally get a clear answer as to what happened. The battle was raging on the other side of Ponyville and thus, all the Scalers moved away from the forest, clearing the road for the young filly. As she got near the entrance of the forest, she was stopped by a voice coming from behind her. “Silver Spoon, wait up!” It was Applebloom and her two friends running up to her. She turned around angerly.
“Didn’t you get the memo? Leave me alo-”

“We’re not here to bully you! We just want to help you Silver Spoon.” quickly said Sweetie Belle. Silver Spoon was taken aback by this response.

“Wha- help me? Why would you three even want to help me?” The Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged a quick glance at each other before Applebloom spoke up.

“Because we don’t wish the worst for you, and we know just how important friendship is. We don’t want you to be alone.” Her answer actually got to Silver Spoon, who dropped her apprehensive expression.

“... Well, if that’s the case, you can tag along, but don’t slow me down now.”

“She’s still going to be a jerk about it.” grumbled Scootaloo to herself. Sweetie Belle chuckled.

“Well, at least we’re off to a good start Scootaloo!”

Going deeper into the Ever-free Forest, the four young fillies could hear the sounds of the battle getting louder and louder as the two armies were now colliding with each other. Although it was worrying them, they were more focused on looking around the forest for any trace of Diamond Tiara and her parents as they were running as fast as they could. Suddenly, they heard the strange sound of metal scraping somewhere in the trees near them. They looked around themselves frantically in order to find the source of the unsettling noise. As they were looking around, Scootaloo spotted something on her left. She took a closer look and saw Twilight alongside a stallion she had never seen before sneaking around. “Girls look! That’s Twilight Sparkle and she’s with some pony I've never seen before.” The three others stopped to look in the direction of the two unicorns.

“And so? W-We are supposed to look for Diamond Tiara! Stop getting distracted Scootaloo and help me out since that’s what you are here for!” exclaimed an impatient Silver Spoon, failing to hide her anxiety.
“Gee, I'm sorry. It’s not like we can just ask her for help or anything.” sarcastically replied Scootaloo as she looked at Silver Spoon in annoyance. But just as she looked back at the stallion, she noticed that he was staring right at her. Something about the way he was eyeing her made her feel very uncomfortable and she now wished to leave. The others also felt the same way.

“Maybe we should leave them be, they must be here to fight the Scalers. We wouldn’t want to get in their way.” said an uncomfortable Applebloom. The other fillies agreed, and they resumed their search in the woods. The metal scraping sounds around them moved away from them, almost as if it was running away from something. With this problem out of the way, Silver Spoon bolted further into the forest as the others quickly followed, not wanting to lost sight of her. They suddenly stopped their run when Silver Spoon stopped moving. She was looking at the floor with horrors in her eyes. Sweetie Belle hesitantly approached the young filly and saw what she was staring at. It was Diamond Tiara’s crown that she always wore when she went outside, only now, it had dried up blood on it. Tears began to roll down on Silver Spoon’s cheeks as her hooves began to tremble in disbelief at what she saw. No matter how much she denied it these past few days; the Scalers were right, her friend was already dead, no point in trying to look for her. The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at the sad scene with sympathy; the sadness that emanated from their bully overpowered any feelings of bitterness they once had for her for she didn’t deserve this at all. Sweetie Belle moved in to comfort Silver Spoon but was stopped when a flash of lightning lit up the sky, coating it in an ominous green. They stared at the scene in fear as they realised, they should probably go back to Ponyville. Then, a hand busted out of the ground, followed by many more coming out one after the other. Soon, there were zombies digging themselves out all around the little fillies as they screamed in terror at the terrifying display before them.

“Let’s get out of here girls!” shouted Applebloom. The four fillies ran back in direction of Ponyville, but were quickly stopped by a horde of undead blocking their path, forcing them to flee in the opposite direction. Their only hope was to get as far away from the rising corpses as possible.

~***~

As the battle raged on in the air, everyone could notice the dark clouds forming above them. Alduin smirked, thinking to himself that they had won. He will have the pleasure of devouring Aruba’s body and soul once the meteors would strike him down. However, he was left confused as with everybody else when they noticed dark green lightning striking the ground instead of meteors. Worst of all, none of the lightning were hitting the Scalers, they were all aimed directly at them. Rainbow Dash flew next to Alduin to express her worries. “Alduin? I don’t think this is part of the plan.”

“Of course, it isn’t! We’ve been betrayed as always! At least for me, I’ve been betrayed by my own brother once. I can feel it, the feeling of betrayal lingers in the air Dash.” bitterly responded the first born of Akatosh.

“Are you implying that Shining...”

“Of bloody course it must be him! He proposed this very plan! He’s either a traitor, or an impostor entirely! We’ve got to investigate this once we’ve gotten rid of this army in the sky.”

Both Drag and Pink noticed this oddity too. “Hey, that isn’t part of the plan now, is it?” said a worried Pink to his comrade. The Tauren glanced at his friend to express his displeasure. “I don’t like this at all, I smell nothing but death in the air. I’m going to find Twilight and Shining right now, as for everybody else, they should fall back. Can you tell all the ground troops to retreat?”

“I can do that, not a problem!” said the humanoid in an uncharacteristically confident voice.
Drag used his magic to summon a drake to fly into the air. He flew in direction of the Ever-free Forest, being careful not to bring any attention on to himself as the two armies were still fighting above him. Deep into the forest, he could see a dark and foreboding light crackling the sky itself. “That must be where Twilight and Shining are at.” thought the paladin. With no hesitation, he flew as fast as possible in direction of the anomaly. As he arrived near his destination, he took one good look at the ground, only to see an enormous horde of zombies shambling below him in direction of Ponyville. “That doesn’t look like the Lich King’s Scourge. It’s something else entirely!” thought the holy warrior. However, a small amount of the undead were walking in the opposite direction of the town. “These zombies must be going after Twilight!”. Just as that though came to his mind, he spotted Twilight surrounded by the ever so growing undead horde. He swooped down and made his mount vanish in order to land, but the incredibly fast speed at which he was flying made him trip upon landing. He landed face first right next to his friend.

“D-Drag! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” said his friend in a distressed tone.

“I’ve... got to work on my landing. I really suck at this.” replied the paladin as he was dusting off the dirt from his holy armor.

“We need to fly away from here before we’re overwhelmed!”

“Just one second.” Drag said calmly. He then swung his sword in a full 360-degree turn, the powerful emanating from his weapon expanded greatly and cleaved all the monsters in half, their bodies falling to the ground before turning to ash. “Now we go, hop on girl!” The Tauren pulled out his magical drake and Twilight hopped on to it. They flew back in the air, now clearly able to see the whole event going on below them. Twilight was flooded with emotion and began to cry uncontrollably, struggling to speak in between her sobs.

”Th-that wasn’t Sh-Shining Arm-mour, I-I-It was... a Scaler... impersonating him.” Drag nodded. “I figured as much once I saw the lightning striking down our own troops... Don’t beat yourself over the head with this. This isn’t your fault.”

“I, didn’t tell you... that I feel guilty about this.”

“No, but I know for a fact that’s how you feel. I know this feeling all too well. Come on, we’ll go help out the others and then we’ll retreat.” said the paladin, trying to calm down his friend.

As they were flying around the town, they could see the ponies locking themselves in their homes, while others were fleeing towards the Ever-free Forest, seeing this as an opportunity to escape from the Scaler’s grasp.
“Hey! That’s Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and... Silver Spoon? They are running straight into the Ever-free Forest!” screamed Twilight Sparkles.
“Got it, we’re going to swoop down to save them.”

~***~

The Cutie Mark Crusaders and the additional filly were running for their lives. Everywhere they looked, there were zombies. If they ever stopped running, they’ll be overwhelmed and eaten alive for sure.
“Don’t stop running girls! We’re going to be free if we make it out of the forest!” said Applebloom to her two friends.
“I’m starting to... run out of breath!” yelled an exhausted Sweetie Belle. The little filly didn’t see a rock sticking out of the ground and tripped on it. Applebloom and Scootaloo quickly took notice and came back to help their friend up. She had unfortunately landed in deep mud and was struggling to get herself out. The two fillies pulled with as much strength as they could muster to get her out. Silver Spoon watched the scene and felt ambivalent. Should she come to their help, or should she keep on running? After all, the zombies were getting dangerously close to the three fillies. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she ran back and helped the two fillies to pull Sweetie Belle out of the mud. They got their friend out just in time to avoid a lunging zombie who then fell in the deep pit of mud, slowly sinking into it. However, as they were about to start running, a large pack of the undead blocked their path, surrounding them in the process. With nowhere to run, the fillies grouped up in a frightened hug, preparing themselves for the inevitable.
Just as the zombies were about to strike, Drag and Twilight came from above and the paladin stuck the ground with his holy blade, burning all the undead to ashes.

“Drag! Twilight! You came to save us!” said the fillies in unison.

“Of course, one could say that’s something we’re particularly good at.” said Drag in an amused voice. The Tauren then launched a multitude of holy spells to dispatch of the reanimated corpses with ease. “Ha! This doesn’t begin to compare with Arthas’s Scourge all the way back in Northrend.”

“Of course, it doesn’t compare with this Scourge you’re referring to. THIS... is just an appetizer for things to come.”

“Balgo!” gasped Twilight Sparkle. “Be careful Drag, that is undoubtedly their leader as well as the strongest Scaler around. I can feel an immense amount of magic in him.”

“I’m very flattered by your compliments Twilight Sparkles. Indeed, she is spitting facts; I’m hot shit.” responded Balgo, lifting his top hat to greet the ponies and the paladin.

“I guess you must be the big daddy around here am I right?” said Drag in a dry voice.

“No-ow that’s just kinky. Nah, I'm the head honcho here, the boss. Yeah, I'm the devil some would say. Basically, your fight here is futile, you will die, and your soul will be mine.” said the gargantuan lizard, his voice sounding much more threatening than before.

“By the light, I just hope you won’t turn out to be another Silas Mann.” groaned the Tauren.

“Interesting, now you’ve got me hooked up on this, Silas Mann.”

“You’ll honestly just do me a great favor if you kill him. Please just go kill him.”

“Ha! It will be my pleasure my dear, um, bull man?” said Balgo, unsure really of what this paladin was supposed to be, causing the latter to feel offended.

“Tauren. I. Am. A. Tauren. Not a fucking bull man.”

“My bad, I'll make sure to remember what you are. Oh my, I almost forgot to ask you your name.” said Balgo as he reached out a hand to the paladin.

“My name is Drag; I sure hope you remember it.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I always remember the name of my honorable adversaries. That is, if you prove to be one that is.”

“I won’t just prove to be an honorable adversary; I’ll go above and beyond by exceeding your expectations.”

“Hehe, your bravery won’t save you paladin... because I smell fear!”

Balgo dashed at lightning speed towards Drag, getting in melee range in no time. The paladin responded with a flurry of sword slashes. The Scaler already saw the attacks coming and blocked them with his dark power by forming gauntlet of dark energy around his hands. Once he saw an opening, the emperor grabbed the Tauren's horns and delivered a powerful knee to his jaw and followed up with an uppercut to send his opponent flying away, smashing him through a tree. As Drag got back on his feet, spewing blood in the process, he noticed Balgo’s jaw unhinging and a bright purple light emanating from his mouth. “Oh great, he has an energy beam.” he thought to himself before placing himself in a blocking stance with his two-handed sword. As the reptile fired his beam, the paladin deflected it with his blade and fell down due to the kick back, causing the beam to destroy the nearby trees. Having gotten up already, Drag threw a beam of light right at Balgo, hitting him square in the face. The beam tore the flesh off the right side of Balgo’s face. The emperor closed the gap between the two fighters in no time and performed a well-executed round house kick that Drag narrowly avoided. The beast proceeded to slam his fist repeatedly into the paladin who blocked the hits with his sword, slowly losing his balance with each strike he blocked. Before he could be overpowered, Drag plunged his horns into Balgo’s stomach and punched him in the chest with a light infused fist, sending the Scaler flying away into a nearby hill.

“Hahaha! Let’s take it up a notch! To the sky above!” yelled the lizard as he lifted his foot high up in the air. He then brought it down, smashing the ground with such strength that he caused the entire ground around him to be sent upwards in the sky alongside Drag. The beast then fired another energy beam to split up the entire earth above him into multiple pieces. He leaped into the remaining pieces in direction of Drag who was holding on to the falling debris. He landed in front of Drag and prepared a powerful headbutt, but was intercepted by a kick from the paladin, knocking him out of the falling platform. Balgo then created blades made from dark energy with chains wrapped up around his wrist and threw one beneath the platform. He then pulled on the chain to launch himself back up on top of the platform and landed with a mighty stomp on Drag. He then launched his blades at the Tauren who dodged and parried them with his holy great sword as best as he could. However, before any one of them could throw out another attack, the debris finally hit the ground.
Twilight shielded the four fillies from the falling rocks with a magic shield. A few moments later, the two warriors pulled themselves out of the debris. As Drag finally came back to his senses, he stared at his opponent with fear. Balgo had created another pair of arms with his dark energy, and these arms were also holding blade with chains attached to them. He was now wielding four blades against one great sword. “This may just be my final resting place.” thought Drag as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Hey, come back here Tauren, I'm not done with you! We’ve still got a tango to finish... Now here comes the grand finale!” said the reptile, whose eyes have now turned pitch black with pale white irises and they were melting. After what felt like an eternity, the beast pounced on the paladin. He tried as best as he could to block the brutal barrage of slashes coming his way. But he eventually slipped up and was slashed across the chest numerous times, to which Balgo followed up by stabbing in the torso with all four of his blades. He then created a gauntlet made from dark energy and knocked Drag into a nearby hill. The five ponies were staring in fear as their best champion had been defeated in a near one sided battle. The devilish beast then approached the frightened group, stopping by just in front of them.
“That is a feeling you haven’t seem to have experienced often, is it? Yes, it is despair.” Balgo chuckled and simply walked away, leaving his victims in a state of shock.
“We gotta go check up on Drag, he’s hurt!” said Applebloom to her friends.

“Yeah, we’ve got to bring him to safety!” responded Sweetie Belle. The three fillies started running in direction of where Drag had been launched. However, Scootaloo noticed Twilight and Silver Spoon weren’t following them. They were still looking in direction of Balgo calmly walking back into Ponyville while happily humming to himself.

“Could he be... responsible for what happened to Diamond Tiara?” weakly said Silver Spoon.

“I don’t know for sure Silver Spoon, but we need to get away from this place!” said Sweetie Belle to the filly on the verge of tears.

“Uh, Twilight? Shouldn’t you go check up on Drag too?” said Scootaloo to Twilight Sparkles. Suddenly, it’s as if she finally snapped back to reality.

“Sweet Celestia, Drag!” She rushed in to help out the mortally wounded paladin. Once they finally got to their wounded friend, they could see just how bad his injuries were. He was losing a lot of blood, he didn’t much time left. He opened his eyes just in time to see the five ponies looking down at him with a worried and saddened expression.

“Oh sweet Celestia, this is bad! Please don’t leave us Drag!” Said a tearful Twilight.

“We gotta take him to a hospital!” screamed Sweetie Belle. “Help me lift him up.” The five tried their best to lift him up, but he was far too heavy.

“That’s okay, I'll just use my magic to lift him up.” said Twilight, holding back more tears. Finally, Drag chose to say something.

“H-hey hey now, no need for any of that. L-look, I still go-ot s-some mana left... I can just do this. Watch and learn kiddos.” His hands started glowing a beautiful yellow just like the sun and with the might of the light, he touched his wounds, causing them to close. The five ponies were staring in awe of this impressive display of healing magic. “There, all better now.” said Drag as he attempted to get up, but one of his bones cracked causing him to tumble back onto the ground. “Ok, I may need some help here. Twilig-” He was interrupted by a kick to the nose delivered by the unicorn who now looked angry.

“Hey, what was that for?” he said, clenching his nose.

“You could have told me you had healing magic! You’ve got me worried sick for nothing!” yelled Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh right, my bad. Probably should have told you that a long time ago.”

The Element of Magic sighed "Let’s leave now, you surely must have enough strength left to summon a drake to fly us out of here.”

“That, I can do.”

The Tauren summoned a mighty drake out of nowhere and the four fillies alongside the unicorn hopped onto the beast’s back. They then flew out into the sky, looking to go back to their comrades who were still dealing with the undead. “Damn we’re heavy.”

~***~

Smithy was running through the Ever-free Forest for he had heard the abomination was hiding in there. The same abomination that had claimed the lives of many Scalers, the young swordsman had to stop this vile creature before it could kill more of his brethren. He ran past many zombies who didn’t even pay any attention to him. “They must have been brought to life by Balgo.” thought Smithy as he finally arrived in a small clearing in the dark forest. Enough light passed through the trees for the Scaler to see without the use of a special vision mode on his helmet. The clearing was very quiet, a silence that felt soothing to the young warrior. A silence that was broken by creaking metal and leaves falling from the trees just in front of him. His entire body and mind jumped into action; his heat increased as did his adrenaline level as indicated by his visor. His hand reached out to his sword laying on his left hip and he watched as the abomination slowly climbed out of the tree. Once it reached the ground, it stood up and stared at Smithy, not moving an inch.
“A new one.” it said in a gurgled, hushed voice.

“Y-yes, I'm not l-like the others who fell before y-you.” Smithy immediately reprimanded himself for letting his stress leak into his voice. Such a pitiful statement was not going to destabilise his opponent, who sure as hell didn’t seem to care one bit. It lunged at the swordsman who blocked the beast’s swipe and strike back with a well angled slash across its armour. The slash failed to pierce the armour, instead it merely scratched it, leaving a black mark on the otherwise golden metallic plate. Smithy slashed at the creature once more, but it saw the hit coming and blocked the sword and this time tried to stab him with its claws. “Oh shit!” Smithy dropped his sword and redirected the stab off to the side and perform a back kick, sending the abomination into a nearby tree. As the beast was getting up, he noticed one important detail; there wasn’t a single piece of armour covering the monster’s back. He quickly picked up his sword from the ground and thought of a way to get the beast to expose his back.

Much to his surprise however, the abomination looked at him curiously before looking at his back, poking it with its claws. “Oh no... it’s much smarter than I thought. I underestimated it.” thought the young swordsman to himself as he felt the panic intensifying in his heart. The beast chuckled once it noticed how his opponent was feeling. “Stay calm, you got this.” This time, it was Smithy who charged in on the offensive, hacking away at the beast and carefully blocking all its attacks. The abomination was physically stronger than him, so he had to beat it with only his skills. Suddenly, it managed to grab him by the neck and its other hand grabbed his shoulder, digging its claws into him. It lifted the Scaler in the air and started to open its mouth wide. “It’s trying to eat me! Gotta stop him before it’s too late!” Smithy grabbed the monster’s head and lifted to expose its neck. He then threw a strong punch at its neck and felt the creature’s fingers briefly loosen around his neck. He threw another punch, stronger than the last and the abomination’s balance faltered for a split second and its mouth stopped opening. Finally, the last punch he threw was strong enough to break him free from the creature’s grasp. He fell on his feet as the monster grabbed its throat in pain, making choking noises in the process. Smithy round housed it into a tree once more.

“Must try harder...” calmly said the beast as it got up and uprooted the tree closest to it. Smithy watched on in surprise as the abomination swung the tree around like a baseball bat. He narrowly avoided every single hit with his great agility. Landing on the tree mid-swing, he saw an opportunity and ran across the tree and leaped at the beast; drop kicking it far away. The impact was so brutal that Smithy could hear the creature’s ribs cracking. The monster went on to hit a big rock in the way, completely breaking in pieces as the swordsman got up quickly, ready to capitalise on his attack. The beast struggled to get back on its bloodied feet. As it saw his adversary run up to it, it shouted.
“Back me up Whiplash and Pummeler!” Smithy stopped his sprint once he noticed two robots popping up behind the abomination. He was now outnumbered, staying to fight these three at once would be suicide. Knowing this, he ran in the opposite direction before they got to make a move, his quick speed allowed him to create a considerable distance in no time.
“I should get back to the others now or else it will chase me down for as long as I'm on my own.”

~***~

“We’re going to land right about now. This time, I won’t mess up my landing.” said Drag before flying downward. As they got close to the ground, Drag pulled up his drake and dismounted it, this time landing on his feet. Twilight and the Cutie Mark Crusaders however, tumbled down the field, rolling right past the paladin. “Ok, I see this was a bad idea now.” he thought to himself. As he turned to look behind him, he could see Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie making their way out of the battlefield, moving closer to him. “Oh, hey girls! This way now! We’re going to run all the way back to Canterlot!” yelled Drag to the ponies, happy to see them safe and sound. However, as the Tauren turned around, he realized that there were zombies everywhere, blocking the way to Canterlot. The little fillies latched on to the paladin while Twilight stood next to him. “Ok, we’ll need to create a path through them if we want to escape back to Canterlot. Say, where is Pink and everyone else in the air?”

“They’ve already left, we are the only one here.” said Fluttershy who had just arrived.

“Now that every pony is back together, we can finally use the Elements of Harmony to save Equestria again!” said a very happy Pinkie Pie, bouncing around her friends she hasn’t seen in days.

“Yeah, that’s great, we’ll just have to plow right through ‘em.” said Drag with a rather sadistic grin.

“But how are we going to do it? We are not gigantic 9-foot-tall musclebound Tauren's like you. Plus, I don’t want to get dirty, I'm not getting away near these rotten smelly undead!” pointed out Rarity.

“Oh, right; you’re always the buzzkill here Rarity.” said a disappointed Drag.

“Well, I certainly don’t have anything on me to deal with all them zombies running rampant, my hoof is still quite injured. You have an idea, Rainbow Dash?” said Applejack.

“I have an idea, these zombies are made of cardboard, well figuratively at least. I can do a Sonic Rain boom just above them to blow them out of the way.” proposed Rainbow Dash. Twilight agreed to this idea.

“That’s a great idea Rainbow Dash. You just have to make it quick; we don’t have a lot of time before they close in on us. You think you can do the Sonic Rain boom again?”

“Yeah, totally. If I've done it twice before, then I can do it a third time! I’m going in.”

The Pegasus flew high into the sky, reaching for the clouds. She paused briefly, if she messed this up, the blame will be on her. This thought made her feel very nervous. Despite it however, she spiked downward, accelerating at a rapid pace. Just as she was about to hit the ground, Rainbow Dash flew back up creating a massive Sonic Rain boom. The blast didn’t just knock away the undead, it blew them up into smithereens due to their frail body being decomposed. The others didn’t waste any time running as fast as they could, with Drag holding the four fillies in his arms. They ran all the way back to Canterlot where they will have to form another plan if they want to bring down the Scaler threat for good.

~***~

A few hours later, the group arrived at Canterlot’s castle. Alduin, Pink and Celestia were waiting for them inside. Upon entering, Twilight screamed in joy upon seeing her mentor again after this difficult day. “Princess Celestia!”

“Twilight Sparkle! Oh, I'm glad you’re safe.” said the princess with a heartwarming smile.

“Ah, finally! The fresh smell of royalty! I was getting tired of the stinky smell of these reptilian creatures soiling my beautiful shop.” said Rarity in a bratty voice.

“Um, ‘scuse me, but we don’t have time for your family reunion.”

Everyone turned around only to see a Scaler standing by the entrance with a scroll in hand.
“What are you doing here, reptile? I will send you down to Sovngarde myself!” shouted Alduin while getting up from his resting place.

“Woah woah woah, chill out. I’m just a messenger, don’t they tell you NOT to shoot the fucking messenger in here? Buncha primitive assholes.” the entire room calmed down, ready to listen to whatever message this messenger may deliver.

“*clears throat*… *clears throat*… *Spits on the ground* Oh shit, my bad. I have a rather sore throat right now. Um, anyway. This is a declaration of war by yours truly, Balgo. I will strike down your precious capital tomorrow in the afternoon alongside my newly formed legion of undead. We will take the heart of your world for ourselves and make it our very own. For now, enjoy your moment of solace, for it won’t last long you bunch of lesb- Wait wait wait, that last sentence wasn’t meant to be there. Ah, sweet Knoxx! It’s those damn assholes scribbling on my messages again! They’re all a bunch of morons!”
With that, the Scaler left without even waiting to see the opposite side’s reaction to this message. The three reunited guardians all turned to look at each other. “Ah shit, here we go again... yet again.” they said in unison.