She stood there, looking down upon the battlefield. Her ponies, the newly reunited six tribes, held their own against their larger, more powerful foe, the griffons.

She spotted Steelwing, King of the Griffons, armoured in brilliant mithril plate; he had rallied the multiple independent griffon city states against the newly formed Equestria. The griffons believed that their former prey could not be given the chance to unite and must be destroyed before they could become a threat.

With one flap of her wings she took off with a velocity that no mortal pegasus could match. She drew her weapon, the large alicorn sized bastard sword, Iridescence. Iri's normal polychromatic ripples were dominated by a crimson that reflected her own rage.

“Steelwing, thy cowardly tactics wilt not save thy life today. I wilt end thy life with my own two hooves” She shouted using a simple voice amplification charm.

“Ah, yes, one of the three divine alicorns of ponykind. I wast wondering when thou wouldst join the fray. Today I wilt return victorious bearing the title of godslayer.” The massive griffon swung his oversized war-hammer catching a crystal pony in the side, shattering the poor mare without mercy.

“Only one of us wilt survive today, and it wilt not be thee.” She swung Iri in a broad sweep as she quickly neared the king.

The king raised his hammer to block but was caught off guard when she used the momentum from her swing to rotate midair and smash her left rear hoof into the griffon's visor, sending the king backwards into several unfortunate griffins.

She pulled her wings in and rolled several times before stopping. She pulled herself up and faced Steelwing in the large circular opening that had been created (after all, everything with half a brain knew better than to get between an angry alicorn and the object of her anger). “This is thy end. Thou wilt never again see the mountains of thy homeland. Hath thee any last words?”

Steelwing removed his massively deformed helmet revealing his bleeding face and cracked beak “The ponies wilt always be our prey, not even a goddess could change that. Even if thou slay me today; there wilt always be another to take up my mantle.”

“So be it.” She lunged at the griffon with a flap of her wings, who answered the charge with a downward swing of his hammer. She corkscrewed to the right, feathers grazing the side of the hammer, and managed a shallow cut in a small crack in the griffon's armour near his shoulder.

She landed and moved into a bipedal stance, her wings spread for balance. “Thou wilt never strike me, thou art too slow” She charged again; aiming a swing right at the unprotected neck of the leo-avian. The griffon king answered with a vertical swing of his own; no doubt expecting her to break off her attack to avoid injury. While she could easily continue trading blows with the king indefinitely, slowly wearing him down to the point where he keels over from exhaustion, her ponies could not. She needed to win this fight quickly; ponies, no matter how well trained, were not built for combat like the griffons were, and the advantage they held would be lost rather quickly. So she made no move to dodge, intent on finishing it.

She felt Iridescence bite into flesh before receiving the impact of the hammer in her side. She felt her armour dent and her ribs shatter as she was sent flying twenty metres as she felt Iridescence slip from her grasp. Nonetheless she was certain that the blade had hit his mark.

She picked herself up slowly glancing at her mangled wing in annoyance, she wouldn't be able to fly for at least a season. So much for a quick flight back to Castle Everfree.

It wasn't long before the battle rang with cries of “The king is dead”. Luckily griffons were quick to break once they lost their champion. It would likely be a hundred years before another griffon chief managed to raise himself to King of the Griffons, one hundred years for Equestria to grow strong. The fledgling nation was safe, at least for now.

Rainbow Dash slowly stirred in her bed the memory of her dream still fresh in her mind. The first sensation that came to her was warmth. This in itself – while expected by most land-dwelling ponies – was highly unusual for Rainbow Dash. She lived in a cloud house, and even the thickest blankets could only do so much against the freezing cold and the harsh winds of the upper troposphere. Not that this puzzling warmth was unwelcome in the slightest, and it made her want to lay in bed all morning.

Rainbow buried her muzzle in the soft lavender fur in an attempt to shield her eyes from the bright dawn that seemed intent on reminding her of her morning duties.

Lavender Fur?! Rainbow was shocked awake in an instant to find herself entwined in the hooves and wings of a large purple alicorn stallion.

“What?” Rainbow looked at the stallion that greatly resembled one of her closest friends as she slowly realized that last night wasn't some heat-induced fantasy, but had actually happened. She slept with the inexplicably masculine Twilight Sparkle. And it was awesome.

Rainbow's stomach grumbled loudly, Rainbow remembered that she had missed dinner last night, leaving her downright starving, and unfortunately, Twilight didn't seem like he was going to let her go any time soon.

Rainbow struggled against the stallion's grip to little avail. “Okay, Twilight, I'm going to need you to let me go now.”

Twilight however had different plans; he mumbled in his sleep and pulled the pegasus closer, nearly crushing the poor mare.

“Ugh, this is just great”

Rainbow was suddenly struck with a memory from last night, she managed to free her right hoof and reached for the lavender stallion's muzzle. As lifted Twilight's right upper lip, she saw a lethally sharp and very unponylike tooth. “Why, Twilight, do you have bucking fangs?”

Meanwhile, several floors down four mares and a mildly traumatized dragonling were seated at the dining room table for breakfast.

“I really never truly expected Sparkles to get get himself laid so quickly.”

“Heh, silly Storm, I'm surprised he made it through his first day without mounting every mare he saw.”

Umbra rolled her eyes at her sister. “And that is why the world is lucky that little Sparkle is the stallion and not you.”

“He's not so little any more; he stands taller than any other stallion. And from the sheer volume of the moans last night, I'd say he's generously proportional.”

“Trust me, that's an understatement Storm.”

“Ugh, will you stop talking about Twilight like that. She, um he, raised me and is like a mother to me. It's bad enough I had to hear him and Rainbow last night, but now you are talking about him in the weirdest way. You're his cousins, for crying out loud.” The young drake stalked off with a huff.

“Hmm, strange. I would have thought that he would be happy that his parents were finally getting together” Theory mused out loud.

The other three mares looked at Theory like she had grown another head.

“What?”

...

“Okay, when the young fillies and colts are asked to hatch the 'dragon egg' during the entrance exam to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, they are expected to fail – the task is impossible, the 'dragon egg' is actually a painted stone, and no single pony can create new life – as Sparkle was going to, but then there was a large explosion of magic and suddenly Sparkle managed to hatch the 'egg' into an actual dragon. Now it was later discovered that said explosion was in fact the 'Sonic Rainboom' of another young filly, Rainbow Dash. Now I hypothesize that Dash's magic mixed with Twilight's to cause a magically induced pseudo-impregnation that Twilight managed to set inside the stone using her magic, thus turning the stone into a real egg which she then proceeded to hatch.”

“Interesting ... theory Theory.” Storm said slowly.

“I don't buy it.” Umbra stated, “Beyond the dubious implications of two prepubescent fillies having a child together, it seem incredibly unlikely for a pulse of raw wild magic to do something as fine and fragile as conceiving a child. It is far, far more likely that the painted stone was switched with a real dragon egg at some point and Sparkle just hastened the hatching.”

“Why would somepony do that?”

“I don't know, but it's certainly far more likely than birthing life from a rock.”

“Now while all this magic shit is just fascinating ...”

Three mares glared at the sole pegasus with eyes full of hatred.

“... when will you, Theory, be the one in the 'royal bedchambers' moaning loud enough for all of Ponyville to hear you.”

Theory sputtered and choked on a waffle “What?!”

“Oh, don't play dumb with me, I know exactly why you wanted to come here Theory.”

“I told you, I didn't even know Sparkle was a stallion when I laid my plans.”

“I didn't believe you then, and I don't believe you now. You honestly want me to believe that it was all just a happy accident?”

“Ugh, your impossible Storm.”

However Storm didn't manage a reply before Shadow greeted the fifth mare to enter the room “Hey, there's the lucky filly. You must be starving after last night”

Rainbow was flabbergasted. After an escape that would have made the Great Hoofdini proud, her hunger had driven towards the dining room, where not only Twilight's two twin cousins, but two mares she had never seen before, were eating at the table. Naturally Rainbow had been terrified; she had grown up hearing horror stories of what unicorn mares did to ponies they caught sleeping with their male relatives out of wedlock (or at least outside an active studding contract).

But when said mares showed not only a distinct lack of murderous intent, but a seemingly genuine friendliness, Rainbow didn't know what to think. Rainbow's instincts screamed that it was a trap.

Shadow lit her horn and Rainbow was levitated forward and placed in a seat. “Geez, relax. If I wanted to hurt you, you would already be dead. I'm a expertly trained member of the Twilight House Guard.”

Umbra guffawed. “You neglect to mention that the majority of your time 'training' was spent fawning over the various colts, many of whom are directly related to us.”

“Well at least I'm not a filly-fooler.”

“Yes, just because I don't leer at my cousins makes me a filly-fooler, impeccable logic my dear sister.”

Shadow glared at Umbra before turning back to Rainbow “What I was trying to say is, we aren't mad that you slept with Sparky, we're grateful. Even as a little filly, Sparkle was neurotic and tightly wound; it was obvious that she needed to get laid, badly. In fact several years ago Lady Velvet offered a thousand bits to whichever stallion managed to seduce her. A kind of price on her maidenhead.” Shadow laughed at what she thought to be a rather clever pun.

In light of what she had just been told, Rainbow didn't know what to think. “Lady Velvet?”

“High Lady Twilight Velvet is Twilight Sparkle's mother and current matriarch of house Twilight. Although, if I were you, I would put off meeting her for as long as possible; she's nuttier than your pink friend, and not nearly half as kind.” Umbra answered.

Rainbow doubted that anypony could come close to Pinkie's level of insanity. “And who are they?” Rainbow pointed her hooves at the two unfamiliar mares.

“I am Lady Twilight Storm the First, cousin to the great Prince Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville, and this my trusty knight Dame Arcane Theory”

Storm received three deadpan stares while Rainbow narrowed her eyes. “Uh huh. And why are you here, if not to attack me?”

“We are here because, Dame Theory has put into play a dastardly plot to work her way into bed with my cousin, the prince, and she had to bring ten bucking tonnes of ancient artifacts in order to have a plausible alibi.”

“That is not true! I didn't even know Sparkle had turned herself into a stallion; at that time I had spent 36 hours straight packing for the move, during which time I hadn't seen a single pony.”

“Likely story” Storm rolled her eyes. “There isn't anything to be ashamed of; he's a prince, the heir to House Twilight, extremely rich and one hunk of a stallion. The only downside is he's slightly insane, but you've lived in the Twilight Manor for your entire life, so you should be able to handle him.”

“Yes, he is an absurdly attractive stallion, and yes, I wouldn't mind him making me his mare. But, my sole purpose in moving here was to put as much distance between my work and Lady Velvet as possible.”

“And by 'making you his mare', you mean 'rutting you senseless repeatedly until you pass out'?”

“Yes, I admit it! I want to sleep with Prince Twilight Sparkle. In fact that was the whole reason I decided to come here, even though I was completely unaware that he was a stallion at the time of my decision! There, you happy now?” Theory's face flushed in anger.

Storm chuckled “You're so funny when you're angry.”

Theory jumped out of her seat and lunged at Storm who was cackling like a madpony.

“Yes, mommy, hit me harder!”

Rainbow decided that it was time to leave, so she grabbed the plate of waffles and the syrup and walked out of the room unnoticed

Eventually Theory's burst of rage ran it's course, leaving a rather battered pegasus in the ecstatic throws of hysteria and pain induced euphoria.

“Yes, great idea. Violently assault the masochist. You do realize she gets off on that.” Umbra rolled her eyes

Theory got off the aroused mare, looking sheepish. She looked around the room and noticed the missing pegasus. “Where did Rainbow go?”

“I don't know, but she stole our waffles.” Shadow griped before turning and yelling loudly “Rainbow if you can hear me then I want you to know something: mares have died for less!”

“Oh, Shadow, this is easy to fix.” Storm said, giggling as she picked herself of the floor. “Spike, would you be a dear, and make another plate of waffles?”

Spike answered from the next room. “Make them yourself, you lazy mares.”

“You're going to regret that Spike.” Theory mumbled as she hesitantly followed the three other mares into the kitchen.

Rainbow walked into Twilight's room “Twilight, you awake?”

“Huh, Rainbow?”

“Yeah, I brought waffles. Figured you would be pretty hungry, I know I am.” Rainbow put the waffles and syrup on the bed and laid across from Twilight.

“Why are you here, Rainbow?”

“Why wouldn't I be, I'm not that kind of mare.” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked perplexedly.

“I wouldn't just leave after last night.”

“Last night?” Twilight made a face that Rainbow found both cute and hilarious.

“I'm offended, you don't even remember” Rainbow said with a snicker.

“Huh, remember what?”

“You, me, the bed, last night.”

Twilight was confused, to say the least. The only thing that had happened last night was a embarrassingly vivid dream involving Rainbow.

A very vivid dream.

Vivid to the point of realism.

Twilight's eyes widened in shock, it all fit together. I wasn't a dream!

A bone chilling falsetto wail ripped through the disaster zone that was the kitchen causing Storm to spill the batter on the floor for the seventh time.

Umbra rolled her eyes, “Shadow, you owe me ten bits.”

“Ugh, damn it Twilight Sparkle”

Arcane Theory stared on in horror, at the disaster that was unfolding, as milk dripped from her mane. “Why?”

Here is the redone chapter 11, no real significant changes asside from adding some banter and the usual editing.