Bright Haze: Archmage of Olde

As we all moved into the Everfree, bypassing the fight at the edge, it was clear by the howls and cries that Timber wolves had littered themselves all over th, dark, damp, dangerous Everfree Forest. Hundreds were still charging and I saw almost instantly we would have to fight all the way to the old castle. I stabbed out, flying slightly to gain more height, with my blade and axe, cutting into the wood and sticks making up the timber wolves, I heard shouting of somepony calling out for Rainbow or Spectra as we continued fighting through the lines of the corrupt wolves but I otherwise ignored it, too busy killing shit. I heard a pony coming toward us as we slowly made our way through, leaving ruined sticks and pieces of splinter behind, I looked to the Changeling and saw that he was changing randomly again but looked to be trying his best to ignore it. He was glowing a dim brown colour but maybe didn't realize, or like the random race changing, didn't care to become stressed about it anymore. He stabbed out with the spear and suddenly began swearing every time he changed form. Nopony still hadn't figured out why he was changing, but that was for another time. I stopped fighting for a moment to see two ponies coming our way, one was a dark brown or green colour and seemed to be made almost entirely of wood, the other was a tall, dark coloured pony with no visible cutie mark.

"Shadow? What the buck are you doing here? Thought you left for Changeling kingdoms?" Spectra asked, Aeb backed away from the black pony and seemed, scared of him. I looked to Aeb as he became a young colt alicorn, then a filly Pegasus, then finally a fully grown Celestia look-alike. Heart Breaker stood to attention at Aeb's new form but then remembered who it was and just stared, Aeb, despite himself, laughed then became his normal pony self again.

"I did, the job is done. I came back, and met a few friends." Shadow replied, just as he said that a dozen figures came out of the forest, the leader I instantly knew, the leader was a strong stallion with a reputation as far as the Dweller borders of the Crystal Empire went. He , along with the group were known all throughout Equestria as simply; The Bloody Skulls.

"Lez Dresdal you bastard. Welcome back!" I shouted, almost ignoring the wooden pony. He smiled at me and put his forelegs out in surprise. Last I saw Dresdal was at the battle of Canterlot against the Changeling army.

"Ah Haze! Good to see you, we heard about this mage treat and had to come and fight again." The pony replied. Usually the Bloody Skulls would fight traitor Griffons or just anything that would wish to attack Equestria, apparently from what AJ had told me, they had recently been on leave but occasionally killing off a Changeling survivor tribe or two, slowly wiping their population out.

"That and those griffons were less of a worry than we though." Stone Mountain, the brute of the gang, the Bloody Skulls added in his deep voice. So they had just finished off a Griffon mission before coming here, presumably they finished off the thing quicker than normal as they hadn't really rushed to come her. But it was what they do. Now they were here, everypony enemy would be shitting themselves where they sleep.

"Ah, I am sorry, you are?" I asked the wood pony. He smiled and bowed, a piece of wood from his foreleg snapping off and then magically reforming itself through the ponies magic.

"My name is Diamond Ray. I once tried to travel through the Everfree and it corrupt me, into the thing I am today. Thanks to Rainbow I fell before I could actually kill anypony but for whatever reason I came back to the living, I found Shadow here taking on some timber wolves and decided to help." The pony said.

"Yeah, sorry about killing you." Rainbow muttered, blushing.

"No hard feelings, you did what you had too. Now, about why I returned. Does any pony know?" He asked.

"I do. An old alicorn by the name of Kalmor Rift has returned and is terrorizing Equestria again. Due to a portal connecting our world to another one, magic is drifting in and out and a very old resurrection spell has taken power from the rift and brought back a dozen or so ponies who died." Spectra said. Everypony looked to him.

"A magic spell brought you back to life because there is an invisible hole in the sky." I explained, Diamond Ray nodded in understanding.

"Well there is quite a lot of us now. So what's the plan?" Nick asked.

"Same as before, just this time we have the numbers to fight whatever Kalmor throws at us." Heart Breaker replied. I nodded and we began to move forward again, fighting down everything that came our way.

The castle was supposedly not that far away but with all these Timber wolf attacks, not that they were damaging or hurting any of us, they were just annoying, we were going at a very slow pace. I didn't think Kalmor would send any sort of challenge at us until I saw a five headed Hydra up ahead. Everypony with a crossbow loaded up and the rest of us held tight onto weaponry. The beast saw us and began to charge. I galloped forward and flow over it, stabbing down twice blinding one head completely.

"We can't kill it, the heads will re-grow, so just blind it!" I ordered, everypony nodded. Bolts flow at the beast, everypony except Heart Breaker's. He laughed.

"I will need it later, this bolt has Kalmor Rift written all over it." The Alicorn said, I nodded understanding and stabbed down again. Two heads were blinded by me and a third had six bolts hanging out of it. Spectra's eyes began to glow red and he charged forward, screaming. He punched into the Hydra's stomach and burst open the skin. He screamed as the insides splattered out and the beast fell. He flow up punching the heads and eyes. Its body fell, roaring in pain as the thing crashed down Dark-red burst a head open, brains and skull leaking everywhere. He went back to normal and climbed off the dead body. He turned to us, everypony, even the Bloody Skulls group were in silent shock.

"We need to keep moving no?" He asked. I just moved my head in surprise and carried on. Completely startled.

"Gods above." Razor the red pony from Bloody Skulls said, holding his knife in hoof. Everypony with a crossbow reloaded and we carried on, toward the castle. Toward our fight.