“So who exactly is this Fovos guy?” Black asked as we all walked through the everfree. Twilight and I knew where we were going, Schnitter had returned saying they were still there and they were trying to poke at her defenses again.

“He is the only remaining pureblood besides Twilight and myself that’s awake. I guess you could say he is fear incarnate. I found him a scared and frightened little boy long, long ago and guided his life as best I could indirectly. When he was a man I offered him my gift and he accepted.” I explained. Now, normally one would think it was kind of a touching and cliche ‘oh he was like my son and now he’s bad’ story. What only I knew, though, is that I’ve guided the lives of all my purebloods in a similar manner. And there used to be dozens of them. Anyways, Black asked a question I was expecting.

“Wait, you said he wasn’t evil... yet he’s pretty much fear right? But fear is bad, we should always avoid it right? Doesn’t that make him at least villainous?” I would have laughed if it wasn’t such a serious subject.

“Not at all. Fear is necessary. The only stronger driving force than fear, is pain and love. Fear can mold your life, drag you into insanity or propel you above the clouds. You’re only evil when you’ve run out of fear, because without it what’s there to keep you from doing whatever you want? What’s there to stop you from being evil and bad and cruel? Because I’ll tell you something, it sure as hell isn’t out of the goodness in your heart you be a good person all the time.” I explained. I was surprised by Twilight, then.

“That makes sense... Most of the time, you’re not good just to be good... you’re good because you’re afraid to be bad, to be evil...” She said, more to herself really. I nodded to her with a smile as we came to Midnight Bridge. I turned around to face Black and the twelve guards with us. Spike was next to Twilight, and he could handle himself so my next words weren’t directed towards him.

“The place you are about to see is somewhere you may never go again unless invited. Ever. If you somehow manage to do so anyways, you’ll be cut down by Schnitter in seconds. First, We’re going to enter and make our way towards the castle. We’ll be behind their forces, but they may be ready for us. You will stay idle as we try and turn them away without any more bloodshed, which won’t work but it’ll be useful in gathering information on our enemies. Then you will fall back to Schnitter, who will protect you.” I explained.

“We can handle ourselves, ‘Princess’. We may not be the elite of the guard, but we’ve faced vampires before.” Black said with a cocky tone. He pointed his spear at me threateningly. I grabbed the tip of it and walked towards him, bending the long metal shaft of the thing to aim the tip at his face.

“You can handle yourselves against rabid fledglings. These are sane and incredibly powerful ones, and a pureblood at that. They could boil you in your armor, rip your throats out and eviscerate you as easily as shaking your hand in a formal greeting. I’ve already called for support, but because of your meddling in Canterlot they’ll be delayed.” I said. I wasn’t mean about it, but he looked scared again.

He seemed to get my point, though, and I released the head of the spear. It was warped and looked as if it was dough being crushed in my hand, though it still sliced open my palm. That part was intentional, though and I swiped it onto the activation support of the bridge to open the static portal. Twilight repaired the spear with a quick spell and followed me as I strode in.

We met a large group of soldiers in full war armor. There were hundreds of them and there were weapons everywhere. Bows, arrows, crossbows, swords, daggers, open spell tomes, enchanting kits and everything. They were mounting a full on assault on the castle.

Surprisingly enough they parted to let us pass when we arrived. A lot of them look relieved to see me, as if they had been waiting a good long while for it. I simply strode past them. Twilight and Spike were cautious, but were right behind me. The guards, on the other hand, had formed a tight circle with their shields and had their spears ready to jab at any attackers. Of course, there were none, but they were still ready.

At the end of the vampire army there was a bit of an expanse before the gates of the castle, where Schnitter was glaring at a man. They both looked at us when we started walking towards them. The man had white hair in a tail and strangely black eyes. He wore a clean and rather high-class old-fashioned overcoat and breeches. That was Fovos, always looking the part of a gentleman. Schnitter was right, though, there was something very off about him.

He had very dark skin, and there was a certain aura of malice about him that I didn’t remember. Its presence felt incredibly familiar, though, and that scared me just a little bit.

“Mistress... it’s Efialtis.” She growled under her breath. That... that filled me with fear, but most of all it filled me with pure hate and rage.

“Efialtis?” Twilight asked, worry in her tone. I didn’t even look at her as I practically snarled out the answer.

“The last pureblood I created before my banishment... Efialtis, hate, malice, horror... nightmare...” I started. She gasped, she had figured out what I meant. “All of those names are what she is... and she is incredibly influential when she corrupts you...” I growled.

That’s right. Nightmare Moon was this pureblood. Well, this pureblood’s influence and corruption on me. But there was just one problem.

“I thought I killed you before I was lost...” I said with contempt. Fovos chuckled under his breath and as he spoke I heard a second feminine tone that could only be Efialtis.

“You killed my physical form, yes, but my corruption lived on through you until it was ripped from your body by the Elements of Harmony. Unfortunately for you, fortunately for me, there was enough suppressed malice and hate and contempt in this land to keep me from completely dissipating long enough to find this fine young lad.”

So, Efialtis didn’t have a physical form, and she was possessing Fovos. I would have cursed if the object of my vulgarities wasn’t standing right in front of me, I had no idea how to combat such an entity without killing Fovos.

“Why are you here...?” I growled. Fovos chuckled again, though now the voice was more Efialtis than him now.

“I know neither me nor my army can defeat your guardian here, so I simply came to show you what your citizens of Equestria will face as we storm the capital.” She said. All of our looks darkened. Spears were readied, scythes and armor appeared, green magma fell to the ground.

“Then you shouldn’t have brought them all... Now they’re never going to leave.” I said with a rather monotone voice. Efialtis just laughed and made a motion, as if saying ‘after you’. I knew something was wrong at that point, but we still all charged.

The three people I cleaved in half turned to dust the second my scythe even touched them. Twilight went straight through four before tumbling on the ground due to her momentum. Dust blasted everywhere as an explosive ball of green fire impacted a large group and dust crumbled around a dozen spears.

Well shit...

“What?! But I was fighting them not twenty minutes ago!” Schnitter screeched. Efialtis was laughing. I lunged at her, then, not really caring about Fovos in my rage. She just started crumbling as well. The last thing that came out of his mouth was mad cackling and it royally pissed me off.

At that moment, about two or three hundred portals appeared all around the area. On the ground, in the sky, in the forest. Out of them emerged a variety of people. About half of them wore night guard uniforms, others had the clothing of minor nobility on, a small amount had normal royal guard uniforms on. The rest, about forty percent of them, had shabby and shredding clothing and looked like they had been refugees. In fact, a good amount of them still had shackles and chains on them.

“Mistress, you called?” They all said at roughly the same time as they gathered in front of us. The state of the majority made me want to tear Black’s head off, but that was for another time.

“Go to Canterlot and tell my sister that the dreams of Equestria are going to be plagued by Nightmares once more, originating in Canterlot. She’ll know exactly what it means. If she gives you an order that doesn’t stop you from following my own then do it. Otherwise, bolster the defenses of Canterlot. Make sure the innocents are safe, but don’t bother evacuating there won’t be enough time. Make sure everyone is in their homes, scare them in if you have to. Once you’re done with that I want a few of you to scout around and patrol around Canterlot to try and get as much warning of the assault as possible. These wee illusions here, and that means they’re already on their way.” I explained quickly and clearly.

“For the Mother!” They all exclaimed before their portals opened back up and her orders were followed without hesitation. I opened up a large portal and turned to Black.

“You and your men get back to Canterlot and make sure they have as little a hard time as possible. Get the message across that we are not the enemy. Don’t try and argue with me about this or so help me I will smash every bone in your body. My vampires will not try and hurt anything that isn’t trying to hurt them, and even then they’ll only kill if they have to or I tell them to.” I said to him. I pointed at the portal and then used my magic to rush them all into it.

“Spike, just smear this on the pillar and think of the bridge from the side we came in, the one in the normal forest.” I continued, looking at the dragon, as I took one of his forelegs, cut my palm on my scythe blade and let a good amount of blood fall into his claw. “Gather up the Ponyville militia to hunker down in case any decide to hit it.” I continued. He looked between Twilight and I before nodding and taking off into the air.

“And us?” Twilight asked.

“You and I are going to fill an armory with vampire-grade equipment. Pop in to Rarity’s to get any and all designs she has relating to combat. We’ll need them. Schnitter, rest and gather your strength. You’ll need all you can fighting in the physical world.” I replied, finishing by turning to the blue haired girl. She nodded without a word and dissolved back into her statues. Twilight opened up a portal and I turned towards the massive field in front of the castle.

The last thing I imagine she saw was me smashing my fists into the ground, them swirling with dark energies, and pulling up a massive forge. Mass producing armor and weapons with dark magic can kill even Twilight and I, so we need to do it the old fashioned way and just speed it along with magic. I started inscribing glyphs and spells into all of the parts.

Instant heating for the fire, instant cooling for the water, durability for hammers and whatnot. As Twilight left I pulled up and did the same for a dozen more forges.

Twilight returned with Rarity and between the two of them were a mass of designs and sketches and armor and weapon racks. I nodded to them and sent out a summons for enough incredibly power dark magic users to help. Within seconds a few portals popped up and I had a large task force of improvised blacksmiths.

“Right. Our numbers are small, only about a thousand total now, and the enemy sizes are unknown. But no matter the numbers, our kin cannot fight with their fangs and claws now in this day and age. They need armor and weapons. We have an expert in design with us so look sharp, we need enough equipment to arm an army done as soon as possible.

There are Thirteen forges. Between these thirteen we need to pump out light, medium and heavy armor, swords, shields, spears, bows, arrows, crossbows, bolts and everything inbetween. Rarity, do you have ample designs for all of them?” I explained and asked the classy woman.

“And a bit more, I should say. I can’t oversee thirteen forges, though.” She said. I walked up to her and quickly put my forehead against hers. It was a spell to transfer memories, and it was the memory of how to use that exact spell and how to manipulate the Crystallite and Shadow Silk and I copied from her all of the designs. I smiled at what she had for me, which fell as I got serious again.

“One person per forge, we’re just making the material. Everyone else come to Rarity so she can embed designs into your memory. We will cycle out whenever a forger gets tired and then you will give them the designs as well and take their place. The designers will take the material the forgers create and make them into equipment. Does everybody understand?” I continued.

“Of course, Mistress!” They all replied in unison and instantly got to work. I nodded to Twilight and Rarity. Twilight and I took our own forges.

In order for this to work we channeled the ambient dark energies coming from the void around us with our own, which after a while can be very taxing, and condensed it inside of the forge. We kept an almost continuous stream of new material coming in as the many designers pulled the much more malleable heated material from the forges and worked them into shape before cooling. They then handed them off to still more designers, who put parts together and fixed things and all around made them into finished products.

The first full sets of equipments, a full batch of thirteen, was finished in a total of about twenty minutes. In total that was on average forty sets in an hour. Forty out of over a thousand, since they would be outfitting the guards as well. This was going to take time.

Every hour, I would summon exactly enough people to take everything we had finished and either put it on there or distribute to someone more in need. At least, that was how it was for the armor. The weapons were being completed much quicker, so I had the retrievers constantly distributing them and filling up armories as time passed. A good sword could be finished in just three minutes, a quiver with thirty arrows in seven and a bow in five.

There had been many random bandit and small scale vampire attacks as we worked, in which I was getting reports from the retrievers, but no sign of Fovos, Efialtis or the army anywhere. Either way, though, we worked and we worked and we worked.

Honestly, I was actually having fun. Preparing for war was something I enjoyed and was good at... And this would be a good one.

Author's Notes:

listening to Night Sky while writing this at 1-3am and I'm just thinking "they gon fuck shit up"
I'm at a conflict of ideas right now. I'm trying to ignore ideas for another story I REALLY REALLY want to do (a story based on children of the night) until I finish this but that is such a good animation and song I can't help but be bombarded with ideas
anyways, how'd I do this chapter?