For a moment, nopony moved, nopony spoke. It was an immensely awkward moment for them all, a meeting that no one could have foreseen even if they had planned it themselves. Although...perhaps it was fate or destiny that plotted this move, drew the greatest powers of the world together for some unknown purpose. Whatever the reason, no one would have the moment to ponder or think about it as Rainbow once again yelped a shrill "WHAT?!", her head and eyes darting about every which way at the three groups of ponies around her.

Twilight and Macintosh refused to stop staring at one another, the unicorn's eyes wide and terrified, the work horse's eyes soft and loving, a small smile etched on his face as he rubbed his beloved's cheek. Captain Nightmare held a tight grimace on her face, an uneasy look in her eyes as she stared across at Princess Celestia. Applejack couldn't tear her own gleaming, ruby eyes away from the two lovers nearby, her heart swelling with happiness as Shadow-Mane gulped, staring towards the two miniguns pointing at him from Nightfire's back. The officer looked officially pissed off, a snort of hot air escaping his snout as Celestia held Captain Nightmare's gaze, an equally uneasy look plastered on her face. As for the other three lunar guard, they just simply shrugged and pointed their guns at both parties and Rainbow Dash herself.

When everyone did start coming to their senses, however, it was Celestia who spoke first. She cleared her throat and offered a hoof outwards, saying simply "Ok...maybe we should all just take a minute and talk all this out..."

Macintosh nodded, getting up on wobbling legs and rasping "Ah...ah agree...ah've got a small army o' ponies waiting in the trees beyond, we should get some fires goin'." He paused, looking down at Twilight and gently bumping her with a hoof "And you...ya'll got some explaining to do as well! You ain't leavin' mah sight, ya hear?" Twilight meekly nodded, turning her head towards Celestia for a moment. The two of them could feel the uneasiness between them...knowing it had only been many, many months since they had battled on the edge of the Everfree Forest. They shared a short, friendly nod though, the unicorn walking off with Big Macintosh in the direction of his forces.

"Whoa now!" Rainbow shouted, following them "Don't you think you're going to need to explain to them why you're...you know...and this whole situation about Twilight?!" She flapped off after them, leaving the carriers and the soldiers to their own devices.

"So..." Captain Nightmare began, pawing at the ground nervously "How um....how you been Milady?" Celestia simply narrowed her eyes, the Sun-empowered alicorn snorting once.

"Peachy..." answered the princess, dropping down to her belly and tucking her hooves in. Around her, Shadow Squad lowered their weapons except Nightfire, who started to walk forward, his guns still trained on Shadow-Mane. "Nightfire..." The Lieutenant ignored the sunlit goddess, his eyes trained solely on the ravaged Shadow-Mane. "Relax, lieutenant. Shadow-Mane appears to be on our side, as does the Element of Honesty. It is safe to lower your weapon.

"With all due respect, milady..." Nightfire grumbled, his eyes accusingly flicking between all three of the sick ponies before him "I've had my fair share of carriers or any others of the sort. I'll be keeping my guns trained, regardless of the level of safety or not..." Shadow looked to have been hurt by his former friend's words, his ears drooping as Nightfire growled "Precautions...we're at war after all."

At this, Applejack blinked in surprise, asking "War...? Has the infection grown that big already?" The ponies in shadow squad all looked at each other, a few of them biting their lips while Moon simply gave himself a tight hug, as if his stomach had suddenly started to hurt. "Um...what? Something ah said?" she asked, scratching through her straw-colored hair with a bloody hoof.

"It's...a bit worse than that now," Celestia offered, a tinge of pain in her voice. "The...griffons have invaded through the northern borders."

"Say WHAT?!" Shadow roared, his eyes of ruby blood gleaming brightly. Nightfire gave his wings a flick, his muscles just resting behind the wing-trigger that would unleash a torrent of metal death, his eyes narrowing at the outburst as Shadow went on "When...how?! The Ravage is bad enough to deal with, how are we going to repel a full scale invasion force?" He stamped one of his hooves, Celestia merely giving a tiny sigh in response.

"I don't know Shadow..." she said quietly, her ears perking to the sound of several panicked voices in the trees beyond. She could just make out Rainbow's pleas for everyone to relax and calm down, the sun princess shaking her head "The griffons are in nature, stronger and more powerful than our soldiers. Tactics and keen thinking will slowly be the factor that overcomes an invasion force or theirs...but even then there will be a high fatality rate. We'd need a large enough standing army to be able to suffer those kind of losses...and ever since the ravage..."

Captain Nightmare sat back on her flank, rubbing the underside of her chin with a hoof "With such heavy losses already due to the Ravage...I don't see any workable way to defend Equestria. The Lunar Guard, according to Shadow, had already dwindled to around twenty percent of its original numbers since the end of the Siege of Canterlot...and that was against an enemy that didn't even shoot back."

Applejack bit her bottom lip for a moment before directing her next question to Celestia, the apple mare speaking with a deeply worried tone in her voice "Well...what about the Solar Guard...ya'll surely got a lot of numbers right?"

Celestia, much to Applejack's dismay, shook her head and sighed. "Ever since the rebellions during Old Ponyville's dire situation during the first Ravage outbreak, my guard had taken a serious blow. Add to that the discontinued support and lack of morale from my subjects, on top of the guards I lost to the Ravage in the early months....I've only got around two to three hundred guards to work with." She looked up at the morning sky, a beautiful swath of red and orange dancing across the sky. She wondered who actually brought that sun up as she went on "The only ones left are my most loyal...if not most fanatical, of my guard. Bezerkers and Paladins most of them with hellfire and sunfire rounds. Good for killing troop morale, but still not enough to hold off an entire invasion force."

The group looked up as Twilight and Rainbow Dash came back through the trees, a flustered look on the cyan mare's face. "For the love of my feathers, ponies are such scaredy cats...they see the color red and most of em wanna go running!"

Twilight nodded meekly, sitting on her flank and offering a small smile as she said "The good news is, Macintosh is talking to them now. We should still be ok as long as none of them get too panicky."

"That is good..." Celestia said weakly, a forced smile resting on her face. She looked upon her old pupil carefully, an odd feeling coursing through her blood as Twilight's ruby and violet eyes flicked towards her...a feeling of fear. She had every right to be scared of Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn who had nearly murdered her on the grounds of Canterlot, the mare who had, all that time ago, had sheared her own horn off. The pain of growing it back, every single agonizing hour that she had endured regrowing her own horn was just another painful reminder of how she had failed not only her land and her ponies...but her most prized student. "We..should probably start discussing what we're going to do about Discord."

"Aye, and about the griffons." Shadow added, drawing a panicked look out of Rainbow and Twilight. "Long story short...the griffons have attacked. We're fighting a two-front war now."

"Shoot..." Rainbow sighed, face-hoofing "That's going to make things complicated..."

Twilight narrowed her eyes, thinking for a moment as she looked towards Applejack and Captain Nightmare. "You...you're normal. You're not unicorns but you guys are...normal." She stated, the sudden reality of the impossible sitting before her finally settling in.

"Yep" Applejack answered, patting Captain Nightmare on the side of her olden-styled armor "Nightmare here has got the necklace that brought the Ravage to the world. She's able to make ponies sane but..she can't cure em."

"In theory I can't cure them..." Nightmare piped up, pawing at the ground shamefully "I...I'm not strong enough to try such a thing. The energy it would take to pull something off of that magnitude would kill me, I could feel it."

Twilight blinked and stared at the necklace for a moment before whispering "Interesting..." she let the gears of her mind click away as she narrowed down as many possibilities of a semi-decent plan as she could, a few thoughts popping out here and there.

"What are you thinking Twilight...?" Rainbow asked, the eyes of everyone in the group on her.

The lavender mare let out a small snort, looking over towards Celestia as she said "Well...Celestia seems to be in combative shape again, and if she has forces we can combine those with as many Lunar guard we have left. Bring the entire army back together again to fight."

"No chance." Shadow immediately countered, an official tone echoing in his voice "With the griffons on a full scale assault, most if not all of the Lunar Guard are going to be on the front lines, doing their best to hold the borders."

"That's exactly it," Twilight continued, drawing a few lines in the dirt and a few squares, a crude outline of her own thoughts being carved into the earth "We bring all of them back, drop the borders and commit our entire force to attacking Discord."

The ponies seated around her looked upon her with complete shock etched on their faces. Applejack was the first to speak after several tense, quiet moments. "You..." she whispered "You want to let the griffons steamroll through Equestria, let em have free reign over the land?"

"Temporarily, yes." Twilight said, drawing a line in the dirt from a triangle to a circle, her thoughts coming together swiftly. "Divided over two fronts, neither force will be able to meet their goals. Together, we'll at least be able to accomplish one, and that one goal should be killing Discord."

Nightfire scratched his chin, his miniguns clanking slightly as he sat on his rear "Why Discord first?" he asked "Really the griffons are more dangerous. They got a lot more fire power and pose the bigger threat."

"Not if we have her." Twilight replied, pointing at Captain Nightmare "With Discord's necklace, we'd be able to combat any ravaged pony without fear of losing soldiers. Whoever is infected can get back up and keep fighting, or we can commit to turning ALL of the ravaged ponies into carriers." The ponies looked at each other, contemplating the pros and cons of such a plan as Twilight went on "Without a force of infection, Discord's not going to have anything to throw at us except his own little protege' of traitors and his own magic."

Celestia nodded along to Twilight's words, getting the picture clearly as she said "Of course...if this plan works, we'll lose less than to at least a hundred, instead of most. This battle can be over within an hour if we push hard and fast."

Rainbow Dash seemed to have doubts, however, the cyan mare shaking her head and letting out a frustrated sigh as she spoke out. "I don't know...," she grumbled "Just think about it, this is DISCORD, you know? He's the Lord and ruler of all Chaos! I don't think it's going to be as easy as simply walking up the front steps of his fortress and gutting him." She looked up to the sky as well, the morning cries of birds intensifying as the forest began to rise from its dark slumber as she went on. "The Griffons can fly as well, let's not forget...it's not going to be too hard for them to cover a lot of ground quickly. They could be on us before we even realized what's happened."

"Dammit!" Shadow barked, a sudden realization passing over him "I know just where'd they try and go too! That's why they attacked Stalliongrad first!" The group all gave Shadow a quizzical look, eager to hear his explanation. The colt pieced his thoughts together as they came, the soldier growling as he spoke "It's a basic tactic but an effective one, hit em around the borders to pull the military in that direction...and then hit the bigger, more important attacks from another flank, catch the enemy completely off guard!"

"You're saying..." Nightmare interjected, his irises shrinking as he started to see where Shadow's point was going "Stalliongrad was just a sham...they attacked it to pull us out...?" He slowly looked over towards Celestia, a wide-eyed look on her face as well. "Oh lords...Celestia herself was there. How much more of a fighting force can you pull away from the capitals if the Princess of the Sun herself is there?!"

Shadow nodded, a grimace on his face as he finished with "Aye...they've seen all they needed to. They'll have been moving at an even harder pace now, probably trying to cut around to Canterlot. Once they've realized that Canterlot is nothing more than a barren ruin...well...I wouldn't be surprised if the entire Griffon populace came running."

"Then we're going to get moving," Twilight said, getting to her hooves and looking across the weary, but determined faces of the others. "We need to strike now while we have an opening. Send word to the guards and have them meet us at...where is Discord set up again?"

"Haven City," Celestia answered quickly, getting to her hooves as well as Shadow Squad formed up behind her "It's set up to the far west of Canterlot." She took the time to quickly etch a circle in the dirt with her hoof and flared up her horn, using her magic to quickly raise a sort of small-scale model of the city. "As you can see," she began, pointing to various key points of the little sculpture "It's fitted with high walls all around it, with a large keep in the middle shaped and designed after the keep in the Crystal Empire. As far as the town is concerned, they are all one to two-story buildings with the exception of a few larger apartment buildings."

"Not much for a tactical fight," Shadow pointed out, walking towards the sculpture and furrowing his brow "It'll all boil down to who can fight better in an urban setting....then again..." He looked up, cocking an eyebrow upwards "We're dealing with ravaged ponies who can't think tactically...and traitors, ponies who were just citizens looking for a safe alternative to getting mauled to death. Granted there might be a few soldiers amongst them but...not enough to pose a threat."

The group all looked towards Twilight Sparkle, who, after taking a few more moments to study the dirt sculpture of Haven City, nodded and said "Alright then, let's go kill a Lord."