Chaotic Harmony

"Go to Tartarus!" The healer unicorn mare was tied up to a wall to prevent escape.

Eclipse hit her head with the flat of his procured spear. "Where is your base?" he repeated for the umpteenth time. The fact that he had continued his interrogation for so long was stunning to the guards, especially the fact that he seemed to never grow bored with bonking the unicorn with the weapon.

"Oh, please. You think you can break me?"

Eclipse slammed the flat of the spear into her skull, rattling her brains. "Where is your base?" he asked again.

"Appleloosa was a fluke. We thought there was no way you'd find us again. But this? Hah, now we know who you're working for. Who the princesses are protecting!"

Despite being very interested in what she was saying, Eclipse simply hit her again, testing a theory that she was only saying this because she thought it's what he didn't want to hear. "Au contrare." he thought to himself. It just sounded so much classier than 'on the contrary'.

"We should have known that it wasn't as secret as we thought. But since we were right, and those two can't even recognize the evil those abominations represent, it's clear now. That's where you get your power from, yeah?"

Eclipse rolled his eyes, desperately hoping she'd get to an interesting part. He raised his spear, silently threatening to hit her again.

"You're no vampire!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. "I don't know what you are, but it's not what I signed up to fight! No, you're something worse!"

Eclipse raised his spear, now sure that she was completely insane. And not the fun Discord type, either.

"You're a demon aren't you!? Some spawn of Tartarus! That's why you don't need to go back, because you've already been! The royal sisters too, I'd bet!"

Eclipse lowered his spear, instead placing a hoof on the mare's chest.

"We'll kill you!" She screeched, now beginning to froth at the mouth in her rage. "Every one of you! And the great Blood Moons will get those twice damned ferals, too! Same goes for the mighty Earthshaker Clan and the noble Necrohunters! We will cleanse the darkness, you hear me!? WE WILL WIN FOR ALL OF EQUESTRIA!"

Eclipse sent a single blast of energy through his hoof, putting a large hole where the mare's chest cavity used to be. Turning to the guards, he sighed. "If these idiots get much worse than that, I may quit my job out of sheer want for a much saner surrounding."

One of the lunar guards nodded. "I used to love when my mother read me tales of the Dawn's Light, noble vampire hunters. Now, this group of ponies have taken the name, but they're nothing like the legends."

"Never meet your heroes." One of the pegasus guards said, nodding.

Eclipse shrugged. "Whoever made that quote wasn't expecting something quite like this." he said, giving one more look at the mare. "This is new, in more ways than one. But what about those other groups she was yammering about? Could they be connected to all of this?"

The same lunar guard as before spoke once more. "Blood Moons, Earthshakers and Necrohunters. They each had a target. Were-animals, golems created from rogue magic and the undead, respectively. Though it sounds more like criminals from partner organizations, to me."

One of his fellow night guards nudged gave him a light shove. "Getting a bit heavy with the myths aren't we, Shadow Strike?"

Shadow Strike sighed.

Eclipse grimaced. "Either way, we've got to clean this place out and protect any who make it outside. Lunar guards, find any more ponies who are fighting in the facility and help them, or put them down if they're on the wrong side. Take this one solar guard pegasus with you for additional support. The rest of you solar guards, come with me to the front of the building. We've got to make sure the Dawn's Light don't try anything while the researchers are still being evacuated."

<><><>

"Just keep moving around in the crowd. It'll keep the enemy away and it'll help calm the general populace." Eclipse ordered. Each of the guards saluted, calmly making their way through the crowd while Eclipse himself looked on from an elevated position.

They were in front of the research facility along with the majority of the facility's staff plus a few onlookers who wanted a better view. Some were obviously media, while others obviously had nothing better to do.

A mare who worked at the front desk of the research facility had told him about a group of mares in the crowd who didn't look like they belonged, but they had disappeared by the time she had pointed them out.

No matter, as the guards stayed nearby. They waded far enough into the crowd of researchers and assistants to mingle and calm fears, but not enough to get separated. After a few minutes passed, however, a small pop-up appeared on Eclipse's borrowed HUD. It pointed out a group of five, hey ho, mares that had been avoiding both him and the trio of solar guards he had kept with him.

Along with the pop-up came several notes and recorded videos of the group, zoomed in to focus on them. It was only later that Eclipse learned that these videos were his own memories, simply extracted by the HUD unit's magic to the visible displays. To be perfectly honest, he hadn't even noticed them and wouldn't have, either, were it not for the HUD. Equestria made some fine tactical equipment.

He gathered the guards back up, ordering them to question the quintet of mares.

However when the guards got close, four of the mares attacked while the fifth one made a break for it, presumably to report the incident.

Eclipse brought one hoof up and slammed it into the ground, erecting a wall of stone to block the mare's path.

"Hey!" he called. "Going somewhere? The party's only just begun!"

The sharp clash of metal on metal told him that the mares had hidden weapons on them and were giving the guards grief. 'Alright.' he thought to himself. 'Handle this one, help my men. Bring it.'

The mare stepped forward, preparing to charge him. Amazingly, she wasn't a unicorn. "What? You want to dance without any music?"

Eclipse grinned. Bursting from the ground came a large speaker, situated just behind him.

Without warning, he fired four chaos blasts from his forehooves, ending it with two horizontal slashes of his forelegs, sending out two crescent waves of red energy. At the same time, the speaker flared to life.

Ponies all around him ducked and ran for cover.

The mare avoided the first two chaos blasts, but the third one knocked her back. This had the unfortunate side effect of knocking her away from the fourth energy blast, but the waves of energy were still on target thanks to their long crescent shapes.

They impacted a yellowish energy field.

Sighing, Eclipse saw a unicorn gallop onto the scene, while the other three mares still held off the guards.

If things weren't interesting before, that changed when a voice shouted, "Over here!" and a small rubber ball bonked the unicorn on the head. Eclipse vaulted forward, slamming his hoof into the other mare's face when she turned to see what had surprised her companion. Twisting, Eclipse head butted the recovering unicorn, a sharp crack of bone on bone accompanying the already deafening noise around them.

A pegasus colt came running by, deliberately smacking into the earth pony Eclipse had just punched. Not far behind him came two young earth ponies, each serving as the final thing that sent the mare sprawling to the ground.

Eclipse turned around, raising his back hooves and slamming them down on the Dawn's Light member. He bruised her for sure, but when he repeated the process he felt several ribs break under his assault.

The unicorn had recovered from her daze, preparing a spell to fire at Eclipse. her concentration was interrupted when the ball came back for round two, this time enveloped in a weak magical aura. It hit her repeatedly until she knocked it away, which is when it floated to the side of a unicorn filly, behind which stood a trio of one filly and two colts, each wearing some sort of grin.

A sharp tug at the base of her tail told her why they were smiling so widely.

Increasing his strength with his magic, Eclipse spun the unicorn in the air several times before he sent her flying. She screamed and spun in the air, ultimately colliding with one of her fellows. The guard that had been fighting let out an excited cheer, joining his two brethren with fighting the last two mares, one of which was now bleeding from several cuts.

Eclipse turned to the four children who had helped him for the second time. "Mind if I borrow that ball?"

The unicorn filly handed it over. Cracking it open like an egg, Eclipse allowed a steel orb slighter larger than the ball he had ripped it from to fall into his hoof. He shook the decimated remains of the ball, which soon turned back to its normal self and was returned to its rightful owners. The children 'ooh'ed in wonder, while several normal ponies who were watching simply gawked.

Eclipse threw the steel ball, nailing one mare in the side. The ball bounced back to Eclipse, who pulled out a bat and sent the projectile right back to the mares.

The unicorn picked herself up just to be put back down by several pounds of solid metal. The ball bounced up, hitting a building, then a cart then finally bouncing back to Eclipse, who swung his bat again. The ball sailed through the air, knocking the teeth out of a Dawn's Light before flying away through the air, off to some distant land.

<><><>

"Get out of my way, dirtbag!" The griffin shouted, stunning the pegasus stallion who had simply been reading a paper on a cloud he had found.

"Shut up!" he shouted back. "Being a bully won't get you very far! Especially for something as stupid as this!"

The griffin grabbed him by the mane. "Look, dweeb. I'm in a bad mood so--"

"You're always in a bad mood, Gilda." The stallion accused. "It's getting annoying, as if it wasn't before."

"Why you little--." Gilda the griffin raised a set of talons, but the pegasus was distracted by a glint just over her shoulder.

The object rapidly grew, so the stallion broke free of his captor's grip and flew for it.

"Yeah you better run, bozo, or I'll--what the hay!?"

The solid 'clang' that followed put a smile on the stallion's face. "I love karma."

<><><>

When a griffin landed on the ground in front of him, Dust Demon had the sinking feeling that the gang he had been sent to sneak into and become a mole for Celestia wasn't going to just let him walk into town.

Luckily, he noticed that she was still breathing even though she had just hit the ground. This was enough to make him sigh in relief, but when a metal ball slammed into the ground next to him, he jumped in shock. Waving away the dirt that had been sent flying, Dust Demon stared at the metal orb. On its side was etched the following message.

'Attckng DL. Wat about u?'

Dust Demon shook his head, chuckling. "Eclipse, you random sum' bitch. Ya'll are gonna blow my cover if you start doing this."

<><><>

Eclipse fired a single energy blast at the lone mare who remained. It sent her flying into the side of a building, knocking her out cold.

The earth pony casually trotted up to the four fallen mares and the three gaurdsponies, dragging the fifth mare along behind him. "How's that for a dance?" he laughed, setting the mare down next to her comrades.

One of the guards trotted up to Eclipse, poking him in the chest. "You, me, cider, tonight. I'm paying."

The other two guards looked ready to argue against that, but Eclipse shrugged. "I don't see why not."

The pegasus leaned towards his comrade. "I have more savings."he whispered.

"And I'm the one who had their opponent knocked out by a flying mare." The guard whispered back.

Eclipse sighed, resting his head in a hoof. Instead of bothering to deal with the guards, he turned to the group of young ponies who had randomly come to assist the fight. "Aren't you a little young to be that awesome?"

The pegasus stood triumphantly. "As if! You should check me out when I'm flying! But even then it's got nothing on you! How'd you make our ball do that?"

Each of the four shook their heads in agreement, awaiting the answer. Eclipse opened his mouth to respond, but he was cut off when a pegasus mare waded through the crowd. "Blizzard Blitz? Where are you?"

The pegasus colt sighed and waved his hoof. "Over here, mom!"

The mare sighed in thanks when she spotted her son. "Oh, thank goodness! You are in big trouble when you get home, mister!"

The colt sighed. His friends giggled, but when the mare turned her gaze on them they quickly quieted down, aware that their own parents would soon know where they had run off to. Finally, she turned to Eclipse, who by now had returned to attending to the guards.

"--and make sure those ropes are secure!" He shouted. "If any of these five wake up on the way back to the castle and get loose, we'll have that much more to worry about!" He turned back to the kids and the one grown mare. "Hey, uh, sorry about this whole thing. Just don't be too hard on em, okay?"

The mare raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't happen to be related to that incident where my son came home yelling 'superpony' would you?"

Eclipse clamped his mouth shut. He gave the colt an odd look. "Where the heck did you get that idea?"

Blizzard Blitz grinned sheepishly.

Eclipse sighed. "Whatever. Just promise me one thing, okay kid?"

"Sure!" He yelled excitedly. "Anything!"

"Leave the fighting to the guards, got it?"

The mare repeatedly glanced between Eclipse and her son, until her gaze finally settle on one. "You WHAT!?"

Blizzard Blitz recoiled in fear while Eclipse apologetically winced. That wasn't what he had been aiming for at all.

The mare led the four kids away. "When you get home, there is going to be a lot of chores that need doing, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear..." Eclipse muttered, rubbing one ear with a hoof. The guards traded grins.