In Ponyville, a black alicorn mare was fighting off several monsters at once. She had accomplished this by splitting her body into several copies and spreading them throughout the town. She was unaware of a different sort of battle that was taking place beyond Sweet Apple Acres.

…

Chrysalis cleanly swiped a blade through an albino soldier’s throat before twirling around and slicing open the body of another. She was a terrifying sight, her heavy armor, hooded cloak, and mask making her appear as though the White Changeling had selected a shinigami of his to reap the souls of the enemy army.

By now, her armor was stained red with blood, but she could not relent. Her subjects, as well as the citizens of Equestria, relied on her holding back this tide. She sliced her scythe across the belly of a leaping albino, spilling the attacker’s intestines, which she used to strangle another who came at her with a raised sword. She sighed as she looked across the battlefield. Her own army had taken several casualties, and they were simply holding the albinos back. Shaking her head, she blasted an attacker with a beam of magic, and then ran him through with her horn.

…

Stag wore an expression of serene calm, his eyes bloodshot. He had inherited the Battle Rage from his ancestor, Metamorphosis, and it had turned him into a different stallion. Double looked down at her husband.

“I’m glad the kids can’t see him like this.” She turned to address the Air Squadron she led.

“We’ve got hostiles incoming! Buzz, you and your group attack from the left, Flicker, you and your group take the right! Reflect, you take the space above them, Tracker, you go below! I’ll take the front! We’re using Shifter’s First Maneuver!”

“But ma’am! That’s…”

“The oldest trick in the book,” Double finished with a smile. “Which is precisely why they will never expect it.”

The group split, their ranks forming a box. The albino’s eyes widened in surprise as they found themselves surrounded, small sticky spheres attached to their coats. Double’s team scattered, and the bombs went off, creating a spray of blood, organs, and body parts, which fell onto the field below as a macabre rain.

*

Nacken looked through his binoculars.

“Hayseed bombs!?! They have HAYSEED BOMBS!?!”

Hayseed bombs were a recent development in military technology, small but powerful explosives that could be stuck to nearly any surface. How Chrysalis had managed to get her hooves on several was a mystery that she didn’t ever bother to elaborate on when asked.

Not that it really mattered, as the air squads continued to create the gory precipitation.

…

A squad of no less than twenty albinos had invaded the castle, searching for the armory. These were Nattfjäril’s trained spies, the best of the best. They had entered with no incidents, and had been careful not to be seen. They turned the corner…

“I have come to eat apples and drop the bass,” said the white unicorn mare with the electric blue mane. She stood behind a large speaker. She smiled, looking over her shades, “and I’m all out of apples.”

She pushed the red button, and the speaker unfolded, revealing an array of no less than seven speakers, which proceeded to blast the intruders with dubstep with enough force that the closest albinos began bleeding from their ears, and the rest were sent crashing into the stone wall. The six spies who were not seriously injured or dead fled, turning through several hallways, only to find a grey earth pony in a pink bowtie. She carefully cracked her neck and grinned, pulling out the kind of bow one uses to play a cello.

“My turn.”

The screams of the spies echoed through the castle.

…

Hope “meeped” every single time she killed an albino. During the battle, she only had one thought.

Darn it! I’m an advisor, not an assassin! I’m supposed to sort books, file forms, and keep my brother from making a stupid decision, not maim, rip, and tear apart an enemy army!

She closed her eyes and “meeped” again as her blades sliced another attacker.

…

I am my swords. They are but an extension of my body. We are one, drinking from the blood of our enemies as we slice through them. There is no future, there is no past. There is only the NOW, all else is irrelevant... I don't want to do this...

These were Staghorn’s thoughts, repeated over and over in his mind as he cleaved a bloody swathe through the albinos. Heads went flying, entrails spilled, blood soaked the ground, and Stag wore an expression of semi-determined focus the entire time.

No one noticed the tears.

…

Thromnombular looked across the battle scene. Turning to the six robed changelings who acted with him as the Council of Seven, the skull nodded. The youngest nodded in return, and began turning the winch which led to the arena. The winch which would free Black Azog.

The five other changelings raised the war horns and blew, creating a horrendous sound. Black Azog screeched in return, her voice matching that of the horns. She emerged from the tunnel.

She was a massive beast, twenty feet long from the tip of her snout to the end of her long tail. Her rubbery skin was midnight black in color, with glowing white flowing lines crossing her body. Her eyes glowed yellow, and her ears were placed on the end of a pair of long stalks. Her four limbs were more like flippers, each equipped with four small claws.

She was the beast who had hatched from the egg which Snow Flea had won from Queen Mab many centuries ago. She had grown with the smell of the Swarm in her nostrils, and had learned that they were friends unless thrown into her pit. She had also learned recently that pony was not to be eaten. Now she smelled unfamiliar scents, those of unfamiliar changelings. PREY.

She roared, and charged, moving quickly for a beast of her size, crushing albino soldiers under her weight as well as shearing their bodies to pieces with her teeth. Magic blasted at her seemed to be absorbed into her. The lines on her body glowed, and she blasted lightning out of her mouth, frying the enemy, whose surviving numbers decided then that it would be safer to take their chances in close combat with the beast. Though these warriors died, the numbers of wounds on the beast were growing.

…

Nattfjäril looked over the chaos of the battle with a smile. She sang to herself.

“It’s a world of hate, it’s a world of tears,
It’s a world of lies, it’s a world of fears,
All your hopes, all your dreams,
Ripped apart at the seams,
It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad world!”

“Yes,” said a voice behind her. “It most certainly is.”

The albino queen whipped around, drawing her swords. Facing her was a unicorn mare in lunar armor, her helmet covering her face.

Nattfjäril cocked her head slightly. “And you are…?”

The mare might have been smiling. “Nopony special. Just… a showmare.”
Smoke bombs went off, clouding the area. Nattfjäril cursed herself for her foolishness at leaving herself so undefended. However, it was then that Näcken chose to act. Leaping over the head of his queen, the changeling wielded a strange weapon: a violin that had been modified to act as an axe. He engaged the mare in combat, matching her blow for blow.

The albino queen smiled, laughing…

…Just as a sword sliced through her neck.

Stag breathed heavily. He looked at the decapitated body of the thing that had been his sister, blood pouring from the neck.

His body trembled, tears streaming from his eyes, and he screamed a cry of pure sorrow to the sky.

The fighting stopped, and the albinos dropped their weapons and scattered in various directions.

Chrysalis’s changelings had won, and the mysterious mare vanished into the forest.

…

The bodies were burned, as was tradition, and Nattfjäril’s head was cleaned of flesh and placed in the catacombs with the other members of the royal family.

The sun rose on a clean field, only slightly tinged red from the dried blood, but the flies would have that cleaned before the day was through.

Author's Note

Stay tuned for the last chapter/epilogue!

Black Azog is a creature known as a Pictish Beast, if you want a basic template for what she looks like.