“It finally makes sense.” I said after my laughing fit had finished. I wiped the remaining tears from my eyes, there was no word in existence to express how relieved I was at knowing all that I had gone through in the last two days was not real. That it was all a dream, so the feeling of sorrow and anger for the deaths of Twilight and Ghost was for nothing.

“This wasn't what I was expecting.” Grimwand said, it was sometime after I had started laughing when he had stopped playing the large pipe organ to greet me. If I was being completely honest, I was to much in the joys of knowing that what I dealt with was fake, didn't deter how bullshit it was that he put me through this though. At the current moment he stood before me much like I expected as a pony. While I looked like I was ran through through a cement mixer full of rocks and rebar. Granted I was glad he wasn't wearing that morbid coat made to look like it was made from both Celestia and Luna's coats. This time he wore only a dark blue vest with a long sleeve white undershirt.

“Sorry.” I said still giving a light chuckle. “Just on the happier side.” Finally calming down from what most ponies would call a bit of insanity.

“It's quite alright, take the time you need.” He said with a welcome smile, well to anypony else it would be. To me that spoke of a mask one wears before they do the darkest of tasks.

“I'm guessing this is all to break me down?” I asked still a good few feet away from him.

“You could say that.” He said still smiling.

“So, if I may ask... why?” I asked as his horn became a lit with magic. A few moments passed as a white table appeared between us with tea.

“How about some tea before I explain?” He asked motioning with his hoof to the little light blue tea pot before us.

“Don't mind if I do.” I said taking myself a cup.

“To answer your question, I find it time for me to in act my plan.” He said taking his cup as well. Much like I did, he took his with his hoof instead of using magic to hold it.

“The one to kill my soul and take over my body?” I asked, to be honest I've known that was the plan for a while. Kind of gave it away when you factor in the memory I got from Celestia and his journal entries.

“Ah, yes. I figured you would be informed about me. Was it Princess Celestia's idea?” He asked taking a sip of his drink.

“No.”

“If I may ask, who's?”

“Mine.” This caused him to pause for a few moments.

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

“How did it come to that?”

“A memory.” This got him to stop again, this time to eye me in a critical nature. I knew I could rub people the wrong way when they expected me to explain stuff. I remembered Ghost one time tried to get me to explain something to him that was bothering me. Something I should mind you that I wasn't ready to tell. So I ended up playing a short answer game with him. Much like how I am now with Grimwand. The only difference here is that Ghost wanted to help me, while Grimwand wanted to kill me. So I had no sympathy about annoying him to no end.

“Care to explain?”

“Sure, it was you as a young colt.” I answered which he gave me an annoyed look. One of those looks that just said that what I said wasn't much help.

“And?”

“Celestia was there.”

“And?”

“She had a sword.”

“And?” He said getting increasingly annoyed with me as he tone got angrier and angrier as I went on.

“She killed you.”

“And?”

“You died again.”

“You really know how to piss off somepony don't you?”

“Possible.” This got him to get a groan of annoyance out of him.

“So, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you kill me?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“I mean other than to get a new body.”

“Oh, why did I choose you?”

“Yes”

“I suppose it was that little marefriend.”

“Girlfriend.” I corrected.

“Right, 'girlfriend' anyway as I was saying. I heard her story about her lover.” That got me to blush a little. He wasn't watching me as he was more focusing his gaze on the cup of tea he was stirring. “Well after hearing that rather heartwarming story, I thought I do a little research. I've got to say, in the grand scheme of things. You were a small fry with no point in existing.” He gave slight hoof gesture at this much like a shrug. I however listened to him go on, part of me was curious for the reason. Okay, that was a lie, a lot of me was curious to why I had to die for this fucker. “As you may or may not know, souls do contain an energy to them.”

“To a point.” I answered back.

“Yes, and this is where you did have potential, if you were in the right setting. On earth I believe it's called, you were pretty much worthless. But here in Equestria you had some rather impressive power.” He said with a smile.

“Impressive power?”

“Yes, see from my research I had found out that some souls transferred changed how they appear here in Equestria. I namely started with small things, just to see what happened. A stray dog here, a family cat there, and all the while seeing how they came out here. Rather interesting as the more powerful a soul on your earth. The more different the form here, sadly they were still souls. No body to call their own so most of them passed on.” He continued with a tone more like a professor giving a lecture to a class.

“Then how do I come in?”

“Well, seeing as you needed a body. I figured, if I could create one out of parts. Why not go further and create one almost from scratch.”

“Let me guess you mix your DNA with another to do so?”

“The first three, yes.” He answered.

“Failed?”

“Oh, they lived for a few days. There just wasn't enough to really keep them going. The bodies I had created was either full pony, or a mixture of changeling and pony.”

“I'm guessing there just wasn't enough eternal magic to keep them alive?”

“To a point yes, but it seemed that the soul just wasn't lining up. Much like some of the test subjects I had one show up as a unicorn and even when I gave it a body. The body wasn't durable to handle the stress to it.”

“What changed?”

“Hoofguard.” My eyes widen just at hearing that. “I see you're familiar with the place. As you guessed I was familiar with it for sometime at the point. With Princess Celestia hot on my tail, I figured a place that she herself wasn't familiar with would be a rather interesting hideout. Then I found out about the dragon ponies. I spent thirty years learning all I could about them. Once I gathered enough data I set myself to figure out what I needed.”

“Raw materials?”

“Oh yes, but not just that. A new place to work, Saddle Arabia worked for sometime. Queen Gaia unfortunately figured out that I was doing thing's rather questionable.” He said only stopping to take a drink.

“So even you find what you did was questionable?” I asked and my distaste could be heard in my voice.

“Well any scientific process is always questionable to somepony.” He said with a smile, something started to really eat away at me on how he acted. I remembered how he was before, a Hannibal Lecter vibe that just oozed off him. Here... here he was telling me things much like a professor teaching his class. “And what's a few ponies long compared to finding longevity outside of being an alicorn?”

“But the lost of life to the to achieve that goal!”

“Means nothing to me.”

“Really? Then why did you bring back Silver Star?”

“Besides needing an assistant? She was an interesting test. I found out that I could mix ponies with changeling. I mean look at all she can do”

“And what do you think Chrysalis would think if she found out?” I retorted.

“That insect? You of all ponies should know that she isn't really anything big. In the grand scheme of things, she is nothing more than a stepping stone. Much like you where.” He said and I could feel my anger rising in the back of my throat.

“And what did you ‘achieve’ with me, hmm? From what I remember you were going to kill me as soon as I arrived in Equestria. Just to have me end up somewhere else.”

“Now that you bring that up, how did you do that if I may ask?” He asked locking eyes with me.

“Do what, end up somewhere else?”

“Precisely, from how I factored in. You where suppose to end up in the badlands just outside of the Equestrian outpost by fifty yards. Yet, you appear just outside of the Everfree Forest.” He said, so Faust’s intervention sent me off course by quite a lot now that I knew.

“Well, to be honest I didn't do anything. Since I was suppose to be killed, I guess providence decided to shine brightly on me.” Okay, so I was a little cocky with that statement, but no pony could blame me after what this fucker had done to me.

“I didn't take you for the fate believing type, you seemed a more down to earth kind of person.” He countered.

“Well, what can I say? I had my eyes open to the fact that somepony has killed me about four times. Speaking of which myself, something's been bugging me. How did you get my spirit here to Equestria? I doubt you were close enough to cast a spell right away, and I didn't see somepony that looked out of place.” I asked back with a harden glint in my eyes as I watched him.

“Ah a fascinating bit of spell crafting I have to say myself. As many before hoof, I needed some rather strong components to make a rather durable body for your soul. It seems any soul from 'earth' as you call it, was too strong for normal ponies. So I had to test with something stronger. Dronies, wonderful creatures they are. They made the perfect base, but I knew I needed to run a few tests before I could bring the main event. Out of my seven tests three survived, but they weren't the right kind of dronies. I got dregasus and earth dronies, but I couldn't get a dracorn or like you a dralicorn. The closest I got was this black coated drony with a white mane.” He said watching my reaction, when he described that last one I couldn't help but something biting at the edge of my mind. There was a level of familiarness to it, but that wasn't important at the moment. “Now that I had the right aspects to get what I wanted, it was time to get to the main event and that was you.” He said watching me.

“Still didn't answer my question, how did you do it?” I asked more to get to the point of it.

“The bullets.” He answered, before a standard revolver round appeared between the two of us. “The bullets in that 'human's' weapon was enchanted with spell script.”

“How? From what I know it has to be a material that can the ink can be applied too. A bullet would be too small for such a thing since it would have to be in the metal tip and not the casing itself.” I asked back.

“We had plenty of time to do so, we only replaced the bullets in the shell casing. But the biggest part was getting it to deliver the components for your new body. Unlike some of the other ones, we had to use small enough fragments from both parent subjects.” He answered.

“Wait... you're telling me that you put parts of somepony in that bullet?”

“What did it matter? They were both dead so there wasn't anything to it. Just go find the body, dig it up, take a piece, and put it in the magic bullet.” He said with a cocky grin. “You can't really be surprised by all this, you have read most of my 'journal'”

“Why?”

“For longevity of course, with a body that is made to outlive anypony.”

“That's it, longevity?”

“Well that and the magical well of power that came with the new body.” I couldn't help but give him a flat stare.

“Well, sad to say, your plans kind of flopped on that last part. I've seen the magical scans myself, that and from an alicorns mouth. I don't have some 'well of power' as you put it. I'm on the rather low end of the scale.”

“Because I'm suppressing your magical growth.” I blinked for a moment.

“So, this whole time I was suppose to have more magic than I had now?”

“Yes, I mean I didn't spend days finding the body of Clover the Clever for nothing. Your body not counting the alicorn well of power is suppose to have a rather staggering amount compared to most ponies. This would be true if I wasn't suppressing it myself.” He answered with a smirk.

“How?”

“With those.” He pointed to two white glowing orbs several feet away.

“What are they?”

“Dream Orbs.”

“Dream Orbs?”

“Yes, very powerful objects that I created.”

“How?”

“With your dream essence.” I turned back to him.

“My what?”

“Dream essence, ever wondered why your dreams always took a turn for the dark?”

“I... I thought it was just natural for me.”

“On earth that would be true, but here no. See after that little deal Nightmare Moon made with Shadowstorm, he came to me.”

“Wait... was that the reason he didn't show up when we went after Nightmare Moon?”

“Yes, the two of us made a rather interesting deal. See, he wanted his own body, and so did I. So we decided to join forces against you. After the whole elements of harmony split the two of you apart, I sent Vermom after you.”

“Which would be the second time I died.”

“Yes, she wasn't suppose to kill you. Lucky for the both of us that she only killed you for a few moments.”

“Then was the plan? Because all I can see is that I've been beaten, battered, bloodied, bashed, bruised, bludgeon, broke, thrashed, trashed, trampled, thwacked, whacked, damaged, mauled, and that's not even going into the more colorful words I could come up with. If it wasn't to kill me, then what was the point of doing all that?” I was to the point of yelling. To find out that me almost dying so much wasn't the fucking point.

“It was to break you down to the point you wouldn't resist.” He said looking at his hoof like a preppy girl would her nails.

“Resist? You seriously couldn't think that I wouldn't resist against the pony that killed me just to do it again so he can have my body?”

“I gave you that body, so I have every right to take it away.”

“Like hell you do.” I said with both of my hooves on the table after I had slammed them on it.

“I'm surprised you haven't asked the most important question.” He said and it got me to gulp.

“What question is that?”

“See that is the interesting question is.” He said setting down his cup on the table. “What happened to the bullet from before.” My eyes shot wide as I noticed that indeed the bullet disappeared between the two of us. Before I knew it, something shot through me and pinged off the table. I didn't have much time, but I saw the large splatter of blood that covered the table and felt the hole in my chest. I fell from my seat onto the purple grass that surrounded us. Grass that I knew would be stained crimson as I bled out there, what I saw last was Grimwand stepping down from his chair and over to me. His face taking up my already darkening vision. “Good-bye Ryhn, I would say it has been a pleasure to have met you. Sadly, that would be a lie.” He said before letting out a dark laugh the just sank away in the darkness.

***---***

Grimwand stood there watching the dream corpse of Firestorm lay there. The last shine of light from his eyes fading away as he laughed. It had been years in the making, years of running from place to place to avoid being killed. Years of making sure Celestia never caught him again. Now he would have his new body in mere moments. His horn lit up an acidic green as he moved the ex-prince's body into a more laying position on his back. The bullet wound that shot through his heart clear as day to be seen. It wasn't long before an orange little ball of light slowly came out of the hole. Grimwand knew what that was, it was Firestorm's soul. Even when it wasn't the normal shade of blue he was use to seeing a soul in. He didn't really care, he had been trying to break this stallion down for far too long. At least as far as he had thought about it. Over two hundred years of planning and tests was finally going to net him the body he wanted. The only thing left that was standing in his way was one little flickering soul. The soul in question gently floated around like a foal pegasus, just like the soul was in a daze. Grimwand knew that Firestorm wouldn't be able to communicate with him yet, as most souls need a few weeks to learn that. So it made destroying his soul a little easier. “In for a bit in for a pound.” He said as he charged up a spell that turned the aura of his horn black. From there a beam of matching black energy fired right at the little flaming soul.

The beam itself engulfed the little soul before it bowed out and spread the beam around it in a sphere shaped shield. Grimwand pushed more magic through his horn and in turn the spell. As the flow of magic increased the resistance that the shield gave matched it. No matter what he did, he couldn't break through the soul's shield. At most he did was push it further and further away from himself, right towards two glowing orbs. Even more so if he wasn't so focused on trying to pierce the shield he would have noticed that the soul was slowly moving itself so it would be pushed right at the orbs itself. With one final blast of magic Grimwand's spell sent the soul right into one of the two orbs causing it to engulf it and grow. Catching his breath Grimwand stared daggers at the little annoyance as he saw it.

“I did not spend hundreds of years of planning, testing, and practicing to be beaten now. Ryhn, I very well know you can hear me.” He growled as he moved closer, it seemed like the soul did much the same. “I hope you're having a field day because it ends now.” With that he put almost everything he could into one last blast, this one completely pitch black. The beam itself flew right at the orb sized flame... but it didn't connect. It wasn't because of a shield this time but because of a little blue whirlpool that appeared before the soul swallowing up the magic as if it was just a rock sinking in the ocean. “What in the almighty creator's name was that?” Grimwand said in disbelief.

“Hey Grimwand.” was heard from somewhere, in front of him.

“What?” Grimwand said as he thought he heard it come from the soul. Which he thought was impossible as Ryhn Firestorm couldn't have learned how to do that in so little time. He did have to admit that this little blasted soul was giving him more trouble than he thought was possible.

“Eat a dick!” It yelled before a large tan like fist and forearm came out of nowhere and slammed him in the face. This sent him reeling back a few feet. He watched as the large forearm just floated there before it's hand turned up and snapped it's fingers. In a split second the still dead body of Firestorm turned into black dust and flew at the arm. More precisely to the back of it where it collected and began to form a body. The mass took the form of a very large white skinned man. A man, who had a fairly bushy beard as well as a large three sectioned off ponytail. He wore a slightly dark orange shirt with a pair of blue jeans. On his hands was a pair of dark red finger-less cotton gloves and on his feet was a large pair of matching to his shirt orange combat boots with dark gray bottoms. The man because he was clearly male that even Grimwand could tell that, stared daggers with his blue eyes behind his rectangle framed glasses. Which was odd as he wore a pair of gray goggles with sky blue lens in them on his head right above his orange horn. If Grimwand could have seen it from that angle he would have also noticed two more horns that came up and bent down behind the man's head. He just looked much like Grimwand remembered he did, but if he noticed he would be wrong. As the man in front of him had bright orange wings coming out of his back with a red scaled crests on each wing, as well as a long red scale covered dragon tail that ended in a black diamond tip. That was when the man in front of Grimwand began to crack a smile showing off his razor sharp white teeth, as his small smile became to Grimwand a dark laugh.

“How is it possible that-” Grimwand began to ask getting back to his hooves.

“That I'm back to life or the fact that I couldn't be completely killed in the first place?” This man asked.

“Yes.” Grimwand asked as he kept his space from the person before him.

“Because for all your planning you didn't take into account one simple thing.” He said smiling.

“And that would be?”

“That I would get my hooves onto one of the black books.” He said smiling as Grimwand's eyes widened.

“How?”

“Easy, my sister gave it to me since you left it back there.” This man said as a chair appeared behind him for him to sit down on it, which he did.

“Impossible, you wouldn't have been able to do anything with that book-” he was about to say.

“Unless I pay it's price?”

“Yes.” Grimwand hissed at him, the man only grinned more at this as he sat back even more in the seat.

“See funny thing about that, you made me pay for it already.” Grimwand's eyes went wide in shock.

“What?” was all he could say.

“See, here's the deal. Since you killed me once and brought me back. That was enough to allow me to read the thirteenth book. Not to count the many time's Silver Star or I should say Vermom had put me at the brink of death. So you could say I paid the price a few times over by now.” He commented.

“That doesn't make any sense!” Grimwand yelled as he let his anger get the better of him.

“Oh it makes perfect sense when you read the contents of the book.”

“But I have.”

“Well not well enough you see. If you did then you would have learned the little rules of the book.”

“But I did! I went through that book with a fine tooth comb.”

“Did you read the introduction?”

“Nopony reads the introduction!”

“I did, and if you did you would have known that it's price could have been forcibly paid by another. Unlike some of the other books, the thirteenth book comes with a few extra tidbits. Like who it causes and prevents death.” He said.

“How?”

“How did I survive?”

“Yes.” Grimwand said keeping his eyes locked on him with his horn at the ready to fire another shot.

“A shield spell.” He said which caused Grimwand to drop the spell in disbelief.

“A what?” He said a in surprise.

“A shield spell, to be a bit more accurate a modified shield spell. See as I had gone through the book, I learned that the black books didn't just house spells. They housed spell fragments, or I should call them spell add-ons. Fragments that could be added to just about any spell, and since the thirteenth book focuses on spell surrounding death and the prevention of it. I thought I would do a little test, simple enough really. I modified a little shield spell that I learned from my other half, and I placed it around my souls. Funny thing about that, it wasn't until I began to really read that I could feel out my own soul. I should correct myself, both of my souls.”

“Both of your souls? No creature alive has two souls.” Grimwand said as the levels of surprise just stacked upon each other. “Wait... how did you even know that add-on would work to protect both souls?”

“I didn't.” He said with a smile.

“You're crazy you know that?”

“As a fox.” He said as his smile turned toothy and goofy. “But as for the two souls, I can only guess what happened. When you created a new body from scratch using two powerful beings as the donors. You in fact created new life which had a soul of it's own. At least an empty template of one.” The man said standing up, from there I can only assume that Shadowstorm was created from my negative emotions fueling it. Sort of like adding a special gas that makes the fire burn another color. Hence how he came to be. Of course this is all in theory mind you.” He said stretching a bit.

“Why didn't that happen to the others before you?” Grimwand asked trying to figure out where he went wrong.

“Because you used two strong of donor material. But I believe that's enough talk for now, seeing as I'm tried of having you in my head. I'm tired of having to deal with you and your lacky. I think it's time I put an end to your little plans.” He said picking up the chair and walking past Grimwand putting it next to the table.

“What are you going to do about it?” Grimwand asked keeping stance not sure what is to come.

“Don't worry about that.” The man said with his back to the pony with a devilish grin on his face. Before Grimwand could react the man disappeared and appeared above him with a large sword in hand. As he fell he was pointing the sword down to stab right into him. Sadly for the man as we already know it to be Storm, Grimwand had enough time after he heard the sound of something falling to roll out of the way, and to return to his hooves to give a massive double hoof buck. Storm didn't have the time to react to counter as he was sent into the table and chairs from before. Only taking a moment to recover Storm got back up to his feet. “I see somepony has moves.” He said stomping on the ground before a slab of stone popped up before him vertically, followed by him punching it with both fists. This sent the slab right at Grimwand to used a blast of magic to blow the rock into dust. Coming out of the dust much like a rampaging bull, Firestorm grabbed Grimwand by the horn and dragged him along as stone pillars began to grow out of the once grass filled plain.

In seconds of the fight starting the dreamscape that they were in changed from a grassy field into a large city block found in many large cities like Manehattan and New York. All looking like it was built on a large platform that was surrounded by a river of hot molten metal that was pouring out of large tunnels in the large steel like dome that covered the whole city. The fairly loud hiss of the steam coming out of a few of the cracked patchwork of plates in the dome as well as the sound of the molten metal pouring slightly echoed. While the dreamscape changed into this Storm was slamming Grimwand into each pillar that rose up. Pillar after pillar fell as the pony was slammed through them. He had to do something to get himself out of this, and with a flash of magic Firestorm ended up tripping at the missing weight with in his hand. Behind him the necrotic stallion popped back into existence after the quick cast of a blink spell. He wrapped the remaining bits of the pillars that was was laying completely about Storm's path of destruction in his magic bringing them close.

“What did you think that was going to do? Hurt me? You can't honestly believe-” was all he got out before being cut off by Storm’s dark laugh.

“You think it's as simple as that? Grimwand, do you honestly think so little of me? To simply hurt you?” He said as his hand was held down for a sword that was rising out of the ground itself in a ethereal form before solidifying into a matching replica of the Master sword from Legend of Zelda. “Oh, trust me, when I'm done, you'd just wish I was only going to hurt you.” He said was he turned and held his sword to the air. “You will wish that you never darkened my dreams, my life, and my very soul.” A bolt of white lightning struck the tip of the blade turning the whole blade itself a glowing energy filled white. Not giving Storm the chance to attack Grimwand sent all of the stone pillars at him. Storm countered with a swing of his sword sending a spiral slash of energy at them cutting them into pieces like they were nothing but paper to him. He turned back pointing his sword back up for another bolt to strike. Grimwand watched this as he tried a different tactic, if a stone pillar couldn't stop him. How about a whole building? He turned and blasted the building next to Storm at a forty five degree blast that sent the building to timber over on to the street above him.

“Try that on for size.” Grimwand said with a grin, if he was watching him he would have noticed Storm pulling out what looked like a gun and fired straight into the glass of the window above him. As it slammed down, dust covered Grimwand's sight. Blam! A sharp pain shot through Grimwand's right foreleg as a round hole clean through him.

“How about you try that one instead.” Storm said coming out of the dust as he was standing there sword in one hand, and a gun that looked like a modified version of the Lawbringer from Judge Dredd.

“Buck this, you aren't worth the hassle anymore.” Grimwand said as his horn came to light making a door appear next to him. He reached up with a hoof to open it before a shot of energy sent him flinging into a nearby wall. “What?” He said confused, Storm all did was tisk at this.

“You think I would let you out of this so easy? If you didn't pay attention earlier, you send my soul into one of the dream orbs. This gave me back some power over my dreams again. Especially the power to lock you in here with me.” He grinned as he send a second blade of energy at the door cutting it in half before it faded from existence.

“You bastard!”

“Really? Name calling?” Storm said folding his arms. “Have we already devolved into that already?” He simply shook his head at this. “I'm surprised at you Grimwand, I would have taken you for a fighter. With all your planning, with all your abilities, and with all that bravo you had earlier. I figured you would have a plan be at least for an escape other than through the front door.” He continued moving closer.

“Like I would tell you.” He growled

“Aw, you're going to hurt my feelings.” He said before he was a few feet away.

“And you think I care about your feelings? You failed as a person, you failed as a drony, and you failed to make anypony to really care about you.” He said and the smile on Storm's face dropped to one stone cold.

“What did you say?” He said coldly.

“I said that you have fai-” was all he got out before Storm's boot came up and collided with Grimwand's jaw. If it wasn't for the fact it was a dreamscape, Storm would have sworn he could have heard the bone in Grimwand's jaw just broke. The sent the pony back on to his back. Before he could roll to get up Storm had him pinned with his boot, and his blade pointed at his throat.

“No Grimwand, I didn't fail at having ponies care for me. I have many ponies that care for me, ponies that you tried to take me away from.” He growled as Grimwand looked up at him with a grin. Then before Storm knew it his right arm fell to the ground leaving a bloody pool around the point that it was cut off. Storm grabbed the area and began to scream in pain.

“You’re still the same, Storm.” He said getting back to his hooves. Before Storm focused back on Grimwand, he was blasted into the air. “You talk big game yourself, but you're still the weak human that knows nothing.” He said as he brought the master sword that Storm swung earlier to himself. The blood dripped from the floating blade. “You speak too much, you know that?” He said swinging the sword at Storm once again. Storm was able to step back to avoid the swing. Using his left hand he pulled out the modified Lawbringer to point it at Grimwand.

“And, what's wrong with talking?” He said before having to step back again to avoid another swing.

“You put too much value in talking, sometimes the best way is to take action. A plan can go so far, but as you’ve shown me. Taking action is best.” A third swipe smacked the gun out of Storm's hand before he could fully step out of the way again. “And now your weaponless.” He said with a predatory grin on his muzzle.

“Who said I was weaponless?” Storm said with a grin before the blood dripping out of his arm turned into a solid blade which clashed with the blade Grimwand was swinging.

“Impossible.” He growled.

“Blood is made roughly eighty percent water, so who said I couldn't turn that into ice. If this the real world, that would be the point. But...”

“But what?”

“You're in my head, I don't have to follow the laws of the world here. So my blood could be as hard as steel and as flowing as a river if I wish.” He said as the blood stayed solid against the blade before more of it turned into tendrils and wrapped around the sword pulling it from Grimwand's magic. The sword disappeared before the blood pulled back and changed into a large scaled like claw.

“You're not the only one that can do what he wishes here.” He said as his body changed to a more anthropomorphic form. Standing their in a pair of blue jeans with a tan vest and white undershirt. On top of that stood there cracking his new knuckles.

“Oh, fuck. Right you still have access to the other orb.” Was all he got out before Grimwand disappeared and reappeared before Storm slamming his fist into Storm's face. The force of this sent Storm flying into a nearby building and right through it. Grimwand walked up to the hole before ducking to the left as a ball of energy shot out of the hole.

“Come on out Storm, you can't stay in there.” He said grinning before an arm shot out of the stone wall. It wrapped around Grimwand's neck and kept him in place. Before he could move a large red blade shot out of the walk and right through the stallion.

“Why not come in.” Storm said pulling Grimwand through the wall and whipped him further into the room. The room at one point looked like an floor of cubicles using the simple slide into place to make more. Storm watched the stallion fly through all the walls, desk, and more. All until he came to a stop from the pile of the building's inners behind him. Breathing hard, Grimwand got back onto his hooves to stare at his enemy, at the human turned drony before him. He looked over the human before him as he noticed that he wasn't in the same outfit as before. He saw that the human was in a set of armor, it covered most of his body all but his head and tail. It was sectioned off much like the armor he had read about in the human's library of the medieval time. It looked like a depiction of a knight's armor but it was more body tight. Unlike a knight's armor who normally is either silver or black. This armor was done in both red and black, the main section in red while the connections in the black. On it's chest had a large triangle shaped right white light coming from it. Small lines of light came from the triangle as it pulsed of energy. The only parts the looked different was the right arm that Grimwand knew he had cut off wasn't the same as the left. It looked like one of the prosthetic that he had seen and even helped construct between bits of studying. The arm was rather slim looking much like the arm was before, but around it was blocks that just surrounded part. Much like the forearm close to the hand. Even at the shoulder joint was covered in a block. There was a third box sticking out from the one on the forearm much like it was there for something to have something attached too. The last thing he noticed was that the hand was more like claws which was much longer than the other fingers of it's normal hand. His gaze turned up to the human's face to notice that he was grinning as his horn was glowing in time with the armors pulsating, even his two hind horns. “Noticed the new suit? Yeah, I thought I would dress up for the occasion. I mean what can I say, we humans like to make an entrance.” Storm said as the hits of a drum could be heard all around them, this was followed by a cord of a electric guitar was hit.

“You think some goofy armor is going to help you?” Grimwand said standing there staggered for a bit.

“Some goofy armor, really?” He said keeping that cocky grin on his face as second and third chords struck as the drums came in more. Storm raised his left arm up to point the palm of his left hand at Grimwand. In the center of it was a round white light that began to glow brighter. Grimwand could have sworn that he heard a second voice say something but he couldn't make it out of the metallic sound. But it talked about some man of iron before the crash of a symbol crashed in time of him being blasted through the other side of the building's wall. He was sent flying until he was able to get back to his hooves after dragging his hand on the stoned floor dragging claws marks through it. “You really didn’t get enough of the media of my world did you?” He grinned as he fired a second shot at the stallion. It nailed him in the shoulder with the force of a block of cement being thrown at it. This sent the pony reeling as he fought to stay standing. Without a thought, he sent a blast of magic at the Storm who reacted by grabbing the ground and threw it up to take the brunt of the attack. It shattered through it before it forced Storm back a few feet. His armor not even dented from it.

“You will not win here Storm.” Grimwand growled as he got up a set of matching armor covering his body, unlike the red and black set that Storm had on. His was blue and silver and a star in the center piece. He watched the dust that surrounded Storm began to settle so he could see the human again. If he noticed he would have heard that the music fade away from the sound it was playing to something rather different. This felt full of energy, full of power behind the set of guitars being played after some lyric about being far away from him. He didn't really care about the music, he only cared about ending this. Storm however just grinned as he had already returned to his feet while the dust obstructed Grimwand's view of him. He could hear him as he began to laugh as he focused the energy in his gauntlet at the ground at a forty five degree angle, which sent him flying out of the dust at the stallion. In the powered flip he brought his metal clad foot right on down on Grimwand's head. This sent the stallion face first into the ground where his horn dug into it. Before the pony could recover, Storm began to slam jump up into the air using the rockets on his boots to send him high up into the air. Then cut the power and brought both boots right on the back of Grimwand's skull. The sound of the crunch could have been heard all the way back in the normal world of Equestria if this wasn't Storm's dreamscape. Storm went to try a second drop stomp as he probably would have called it. But as soon as he got to the air, Grimwand turned his own gauntlet at Storm and blasted one of the rockets on the boot. The force of it flung Storm into one of the higher floors of a building. Using the time he had, Grimwand dug his head out of the ground. The massive cracks in his skin and horn riddled them both for moments before like a trickle of water. It washed away with a flick of magic. “No more mister nice pony.” With that he focused on making himself larger then he was before. His muscles began to grow bigger and bigger as the armor changed to fit his larger bulkier form.

“What got tired of the suit already and wanted to go a little bit more meat headed?” Storm said as he made his way back to whole in the solid wall he was blasted into. “I guess it's time for the mark fourteen armor then.” He said before taking his pointer finger and thumb, and placed them both in his mouth, a sharp whistle echoed. A cannon shot was heard as a large metal box with a large fourteen painted on it flew right at Storm. This only lasted a second before the box exploded in the air and fragments of red and black few right at the waiting human turned dragon pony. Like a second armor it covered up the first armor around him until Storm looked like he tripled in size. Storm jumped down as the last bits finished locking in place and a large dome like piece snapped closed over him. It's two large slots for what could be assumed was eyes lit up as it powered up.

“Quit relying on such toys.” Grimwand said as his voice dropped a few octaves that it was more baritone than anything else.

“And give up the chance to test drive the hulkbuster? Oh please, what do you take me for a fool?”

“Do you want me to answer that?” Storm watched as Grimwand grinned at his little cheeky comment.

“No thanks, but I will be willing to dish out a can of whoop ass, followed by a side order of crushed Grimwand.” Storm said as the two large metallic hands came together and sounded with the mixture of metal and bones cracked like he was cracking his knuckles. Grimwand didn't give much time for anything else before sending out a swing with his right arm. Storm grabbed it with left as his right hand moved to look like he was yawning. “Really? Just right into the punching?” He said before he noticed that Grimwand's hand twisted pointing it towards Storm's that held it. In a second a large blue beam of power ripped through the larger robotic arm that was once there.

“Right, no playing around with psychotic necromancer pony.” He said before his right turned and slammed Grimwand back in the face. He didn't need much time to recover as Grimwand took the hit fine and dished out one of his own that put a rather good dent in the domed helmet around Storm's head. That was followed by having his arm grabbed and ripped out. Standing there, armless wasn't a very promising moment for him before he ducked down so the back of his armor could be seen. Two large metal plates opened up to show two sets of three red tipped missiles. They fired striking Grimwand on a few places. This only annoyed Grimwand as the missiles struck and exploded covering his view of Storm. Who decided to leg it to another area as he formed another set of arms. Unlike the normal fist one's from before. The right arm this time held what looked like a large cannon on it. But the point where it fired from didn't have a barrel but more a lens to it. The polished red looking lens gleamed in the molten light of the steel dome. His left arm was much like before, but had a large sword that just seemed oversized even for it. But it didn't matter, was really mattered was the red glow coming from the edge of the blade, more importantly the edge where a sword would cut through stuff. Storm looked around for an idea and noticed that one building was in perfect line with Grimwand. Grinning like a fool, Storm couldn’t help but rush over to it and cut the building much like Grimwand did before at a forty five degree angle. The building slid down the slope, cut into it, and landed right on top of Grimwand. The only difference here to before was that Grimwand was massive compared to how Storm was at the time, as well as it was a solid side of the building so there wasn't windows to crash into.

Taking the lens on the barrel and pressing it against the ceiling of the room he had cut into. He blasted the building forward causing the floor that Grimwand had sprouted into would be flying at him. It seemed that Storm had put too much power into the blast as the building itself was sent much further, right into the molten metal that surrounded the island. This was followed with Storm cracking a smile as a small laugh began to come to him.

“It's finally over.” He said between his light chuckle as he tried to find his way out of this place. The semi destroyed buildings around him riddled the island around him. “You know, I'm a little surprised my mind went here of all places.” He said looking around, he couldn't help but reflect on the same idea of a place for a game that he wanted to make. It was suppose to be this massive final boss like area and it didn't disappoint. “Okay... so... how the fuck am I going to get out of here.” He said to himself. The moment had taken a turn for the sound when the ground started to rumble making Firestorm almost lose his footing. Upon turning around to the direction of both where he sent Grimwand off the end and the vibrations was coming from, Firestorm noticed that a large mass rose up from the molten metal. He watched the liquid steel run and drip off like water running off a ball being lifted the same way. He watched as he couldn't hide his own horror as the mass began to take shape. Two large long limbs began to unfurl out from the center mass, like two long arms at the end of it was a miss match set of claws. All of them very jagged, like a serrated knife, each claw almost the length of a football field. All connected to the two arms that was nothing more than metal bones. As the mass spread out more another set of arms with matching claws unfurled leaving most of the mass out. The last bit was what sent a shiver down Storm's spine. A large pony like head raised as his mane looked like nothing but strains of corded steel rope attached to a face that more like someone removed half of the flesh from it and give the bones under it a massive chrome dip. In the socket for the eyes was a sea of black within each of them was a glowing red dot that looked directly at me.

“What's the matter Storm? I thought you wanted to finish this?” The monstrous Grimwand said as his voice.

“Oh, fuck me.” Storm said more to himself as he had to think of something. But sadly his mind was drawing a blank. A whistle could be heard behind him, this caused him to turn to see a dark figure standing at the top of a building.

“Hey did you forget about somepony?” He said before jumping down and landing on his feet. He stood at the same height as Storm without the hulkbuster suit he had on currently. He stood there in a pair of long black and baggy Tripp pants with red accents and a just as black shirt as he looked identical to Storm in everything but his colors. Where Storm had a more tan skin, Shadowstorm had dark skin and his eyes much like how he looked in his pony form were red while the whites were a crimson red. His hair of jet black while his horn and wings was the same color as his skin all but the scaled crests of his wings and tail which had a violet hue. He grinned as he made Firestorm's suit disappeared making him standing in a matching outfit with his normal orange and blue color scheme has he was known to wear on earth.

“Shadow where were you hiding?” I asked looking at him.

“You think you were the only one stuck in a hellscape? The problem was for him that I already knew it was fake. Surprised it took you so long to get through it.” He said with a smirk.

“Okay, point. But why did you remove the hulkbuster suit I had on?” Storm asked.

“Easy, for this.” He said tossing Storm what looked like a rather thick belt buckle. Storm took a moment to look at the front of the silver buckle. In the center was a large golden coin that had the pressed image of reptilian like creature. Surrounding the coin was a large red circle, and to either side of it was a swish of black. The only thing to break up the red circle and swish was a jagged line that cut into both of them. Storm couldn't help but grin as he recognized what it was right off the bat. He pulled the hand that was in the back of the thick buckle and set his hand so that he was only holding it by side handle. He turned to see that Shadow had a matching one, but on his instead of the pressed image of some kind of lizard he had what more looked like the top of a three point spear on it. All curved up like a moon being stabbed with a blade.

“Oh, I get it.” Storm said smiling.

“What are you two doing?” Grimwand roared at them. “Enough of this.” He continued before taking one of his hands and snapping his impossibly long finger. In seconds the shadows around both Storm and Shadow moved as they came to life. I few moments passed as the shadow ponies began to appear out of the walls and shadows. The same white masks with the red cracks in it, on each one of the ponies faces. The only thing that was heard from them was the sounds of laughter. They watched as they were completely surrounded by them.

“I guess now or never right?” Storm said grinning like a madman.

“Of course.” Shadow replied as they both took stance. They had their right arm across their chest until they held the silver buckle looking device at their respective chests. They swiftly turned the angle of the arm until it was fully extended with their left arms together with their right. Then this action was followed by them point their hands and device forward.

“It's morphin time!” They yelled at the same time. In a second the jagged spots on the device opened up glowed with two different colors. Storm's glowed with a bright red, while Shadow had a green.

“Tyrannosaurus!” Storm yelled as the energy enveloped him.

“Dragon zord!” Shadow followed as the same happened to him. The energy blinded all of the shadow ponies as well as Grimwand who moved two of his hands in the way to block the light. When it died away Grimwand saw the two figures standing there in different color garb. The outfits they wore was full solid color only broken up by the large white diamonds that was on the chest and patterned around the suit top so there was four total. They had long white gloves and boots that were much like his suit but the diamonds on these where the invert of the color of their respective suits. Around their waists where a white belt with the buckle like device attached to it. Attached to said belt was a holster that had what looked like a gun of some sort. Covering these features was a large helmet that looked like the mouth of a dinosaur of some sort patterned around the black visor. One was in red which was Storm. The other one as green which was Shadow, who outfit had some differences compared to Storm's. Instead of the gun in his holster, it was a dagger like device that had press-able buttons in the handle. Around his chest was a large golden chest plate that covered the top two thirds of his body roughly while in the center of it was a large diamond shape pressed into it. On the upper bicep of each arm was a gold band and on both gloves and boots was a matching thin line. As well as the red diamonds on Storm's outfit, was instead large green spikes pointing down. The only thing to really tell who was in each was the fact that two draconic tails pointed out of the back ends of the outfits, Storms red tail fit well with the outfit he wore, while the more black tail of Shadow didn't really match with his.

The both took a change of stances and if were asked they would answer that, hey couldn't resist by saying “Power Rangers!” Grimwand watched this in a mixture of confusion and bewilderment. That quickly turned to anger as he tried to take them out by topping the building behind them. The jumped and dived to the left as the building dropped down crushing many of the shadow ponies. The others turned to gallop after them. Storm grinned as he pulled from his holster the gun and opened it up to slide to a stop and take a few pot shots at the figments of ponies. A few of them disappeared as the beams of red energy struck them. The gun itself was fired upon and sent flying out of his hands as one of the unicorn variety of shadow ponies that had returned fire. It wasn't the only one as more of them took stance and fired upon the two. As they took the smarter option and booked it for the high hills. All while Grimwand continued to take slashes at the buildings around them causing them to fall towards them.

“Any more ideas?” Storm said taking a sharp corner only to take another one to avoid a wave of magic flung at them.

“Give me a moment to think.” Shadow said following Storm as they avoided the attacks. That was when he snapped his finger like he had an idea. Before Storm could comment about this Shadow grabbed the dagger in his holster and brought up the mouth piece attached to it. It wasn't just a dagger but it was a flute of some sort. Shadow played a tune through it, the sounds of bubbling could be heard on the far end of dome. The molten metal rose up much like a geyser of it shot up into air to show what could be best described as a metallic dragon appeared out of it.

“The dragonzord!” Storm said turning to see the new comer first thinking it was someone else to come in to screw this his head. “Brilliant.” After saying that an idea struck him. “Do you think you could keep Grimwand busy while I get the megazord?”

“What do you take me for?” Shadow said giving and overly charismatic shrug. Storm grin as his wings shot out the back of his suit and launched himself into the air. Shadow followed a few seconds landing on the shoulder of the zord he summoned.

“We need dinosaur power now!” Storm yelled and much like the show he use to watch as a child the different zords appeared and began to morph together into the megazord. In seconds he was in the cockpit of it as he brought it over the the dragonzord who was at this time taking massive damage as it had two of Grimwand’s arms pinned while the two remaining was left open to take slashes at it. “We need the power sword.” Storm yelled as a long bladed sword fell through the rusted metal dome and stuck the ground at the feet of the megazord. “Time to end this.” He said grabbing the sword. “Shadow get out of the way.” He said raising the blade above his head. From the same mysterious place the sword had come from the sword was struck with a bolt of energy. Shadow getting the hint stepped to the side releasing the two arms. Grimwand only had enough time to look passed the mechanized dragon to see a slash of energy coming right at him. With a growl his horn lit up with shield appearing shortly after taking the brunt of the hit. It only left a crack.

“Shadow missiles!” Storm said getting ready for a second strike.

“Hold your horses.” He said as both hands of the Dragonzord were armed with the requested missiles. “Can't you give a guy a moment to breathe. It's not like it's the end of the world.” He shot back before launching ten missiles at the shield. They stuck against the shield leaving a cloud of smoke blocking their view. Storm didn't need to see to know where to strike as he sent another blade of energy at the shield. The sounds close to shattered glass could be heard and nothing else.

“Nice try human.” A voice said behind Storm before a clawed hand punched right through the massive machine he was driving. “Your overconfidence is your downfall Ryhn.” Three more hands gripped onto the head and arms of the Megazord before it was torn into pieces around him. He took this time to fly out before Grimwand took what he ripped off and slammed it back into the remaining body. It exploded before him leaving Storm hovering in the air before him. “What are you going to do now?” Grimwand said gloating.

“Don't forget about me asshole.” Shadow said swinging his mech's tail striking Grimwand in the back of his head. Storm used this time to fly off before an idea struck him. He couldn't help but start to laugh at the idea. “Want to see what's it like screwing with a mean son of a bitch?” Shadow said before jumping out of the Dragonzord as it launched itself into the air. Grimwand watched as core left and the rest split down the center while being left connected by the hair of it. Under it a large blue box like robot began to shot out of the ground under it. It's head is a cherry red Plymouth Barracuda with a black top. While most of the body was a light metallic blue with yellow flame accents that had an orange border to them. On the left arm was a flaming eyeball, and on the right was a flaming eight ball. On the back of the mechanical behemoth was two fins much like the old classic muscle cars had. Painted on the front was a small wall of fire on the steel plate and a large yellow with orange bordered twelve. Shadow jumped into the car through the window much like the old dukes boys from dukes of hazzard. As soon as turned the key and started up the Megas from the show Megas XLR the split form of the Dragonzord laid on top of it latching on to it. Before him on the small computer display in the Megas new system options appeared. “Oh hell yeah.” Shadow said grinning like a madman as his outfit changed from the green ranger outfit back to the outfit he had on before.

“Shadow can you read me?” Storm said through the computer display.

“Loud and clear, got yourself set?” Shadow asked already having an good idea what Storm was up to.

“Yeah, do you think you can hold him off long enough?”

“In this thing? Oh fuck yeah.”

“Good, by the way great choice using the Megas.”

“Couldn't resist to be honest.”

“Can't blame you on that one, just keep him busy.”

“Can do.” Shadow said before turning Megas around to face the monstrosity before him. The world around them changed to a series of floating islands in a massive darken sky. “Well mister tall dark and ugly as sin, ready to tango?”

“I thought you would never ask.” Grimwand said as he rushed forward, claws ready to slash at his foe. The left hand of the Megas pulled back and swung like it as going to punch, in doing so launched the hand right at Grimwand who tried to turn so it would miss him. It clipped him and caused him to spin lightly into the right fist coming for a swing. The force of it sent Grimwand back onto his back. The left arm reloaded with a large barrel which was pointed right into Grimwand. A round fired, but missed as Grimwand faded into the ground. Shadow jumped into the air and hovered looking around for his target. “Looking for somepony?” Shadow dodged to the left right into Grimwands free floating arm that grabbed him and the robot and all into the mountain on one of the floating islands. Three other arms appeared out of nowhere grabbing each limb of the Megas. “What are you going to do now?” Grimwand said appearing before him limbless and his horn glowing in a venomous black.

“This!” Shadow said slamming every button that had the word missiles on it. Missiles, more missiles, extra missiles, and full payload missiles were pressed before every opening including the hands from the Dragonzord opened up and millions of missiles flew out. Wave after wave of them came out as two of the arms released the legs of the Megas, all to defend the main body of Grimwand. There was the sound of a pained roar coming from the smoke screen that was produced from every missile striking him. When the cloud dissipated enough it was shown that a lot of loads was riddled throughout his body, including most of the chrome side of his skull.

“You think you're clever, well try this one on for size.” Grimwand yelled as the two arms that floated back smacked it's hands together before an orb of swirling energy began to form between the hands. As he pulled the arms back the sphere of energy grew to almost the size of a small meteor. Shadow's eyes widen before looking for something to help him get the hell out of dodge. Right there next to a few of the blow up the world buttons that was riddled through the controls was a button simply labeled 'get the hell out of dodge.'

“Convenient.” Shadow said before punching the button. The rockets in the feet of the Megas began to ignite and send him sliding up the mountain right as Grimwand threw the ball of energy at him. Only by the mere inches was Shadow able to avoid the blast of that ball before it vaporized the whole island he was on. He was still at the mercy of the two arms holding onto him before opening up the side panels of the arm giving him enough wiggle room to get two cannons out on each arm. With a quick pull the arms released and took two rounds from point blank range destroying them. “Two down-” Shadow said before getting cut off.

“Hundreds to go.” Grimwand said as just as he said hundreds of free floating arms appeared around him.

“Ah, shit.” Shadow said grabbing a nearby controller inputting the following command. “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, and Start.” He said as he pressed it. On the display the following message appeared. “Thirty death code entered.” Just as the message left, all of the exterior ports opened around the massive robot as gun after gun appeared. Even to the point that there was gun's on top of guns. Once it was all said done it was hard to even see any of the said robot beyond the car head and parts of the Dragonzord attached to the top of it. “Fire!” Wave after wave of rounds flew out of each barrel strike any limbs with in it's line of fire. “Storm are you almost ready?” Shadow asked moving over to the monitor in the dash of the car.

“I'm almost there, be ready to boost.” Storm said as it looked like lines or orange energy was running through him like the markings of a circuit board.

“Don't worry about me, I'll be ready. I doubt my attack is going to work. This fucking is outnumbering me on limbs alone.”

“I can see that from here. In the end it won't matter, as long as this works.”

“Do you even know if it's going to work?”

“Nope.”

“So you're putting this all on a gamble?”

“What can I say? We're only human.” Storm said grinning as something glinted around his neck. Shadow couldn't see it from the view he was being shown but what looked like a necklace was around Storm's neck that wasn't there before. Some distance away from the fight between Shadow and Grimwand. Storm was sitting on a free floating island in a new robot. This one has mostly a humanoid style frame but slender in style. The face closely looked like a skull with two large angled antenna like pieces coming to either side of the head. The closest thing someone or somepony could compare this two was that of a skeleton with out bare and mostly white it was. There was yellow spots where a lot of the joints were as well as the area around the cockpit that was literally in the in the spot the male genitalia was. Besides the white areas was the darker gray spots in the torso front and black plates as well as the robot's udder arms by the bicep. On it's back was two relative to it small protrusions that could have easily be mistaken for wings but was in fact the rockets that help make it fly. Connected to the left arm was a buckler like shield and the right arm had a blade that would flip over so it was covering the hand for close range attacks. On the knees of the robot were two extra jets to help it fly. But it wasn't moving as it was settled into place by three glowing red cables and a sword shaped back brace behind the rear end of the machine. Around the upper part of the head was two box like devices that had what could be easily mistaken as the jets on a earth jet plane with two long handles under it that the robot which was known by the name of Jehuty from one of Storm's favorite giant robot games, zone of the enders two the second runner. Before him was size rotating plates in a counterclockwise rotation, that began to glow brightly as they slowly began to pick up speed.

“Inner chamber pressure rising normally.” Came out of the console before Storm.

“Thank you Ada.” Storm said watching the series of bars before him fill. This was the only thing he didn't like about what he wanted to do. The time it would take to charge the weapon. Plus if he was to be honest with himself and Shadow. He was scared that his idea wasn't going to work. He hoped that being connected to the artifacts of harmony gave him the ability to emulate their power or at least the elements of harmony's power in his dream scape. The only thing that gave him more hope than he really felt he should have was the six hexagon shaped plates began to change into the cutie-marks of his best friends and marefriend. As they continued to rotate into place the ring itself began to change from the light pale blue into a bright vibrant prism of colors. He could see with an extra window before him that Shadow was keeping Grimwand pinned down at least for now.

“Ready to fire.” Ada said a few moments later as Storm's gaze saw that the bar was completely full.

“Ada, do you think the vector cannon will be enough to put Grimwand down for good?” Storm asked to the orbital frame he was piloting as that was what Jehuty was in the game.

“Alone negative. From observations you will need a massive amount of energy to completely destroy the target.” Ada replied.

“What if a second robot fed power into Jehuty, would that work?”

“In theory it is possible but having enough time to send the power will be an issue.”

“Shadow, do you think you can keep Grimwand covered from here?”

“Here where?” Shadow asked moving his head into view.

“I'm on the island in front of the solar eclipse.” Storm said, and Shadow moved while keeping most of his guns firing at Grimwand to see that Storm was indeed where he was. Right in front of said eclipse, with the red corona that can be seen around it.

“I think so.” Shadow said moving his hands over to the steering wheel and pulled back on it so that the boosters would fire. This allowed him to slowly move himself back towards Storm who was locked into place because of the vector cannon. Grimwand noticed that the difference in the time the round took to strike his wall of arms. Which he was using to hold the attack at bay, so he could charge up one of his own. He moved a few arms just enough to watch the Megas retreat slowly while laying on the suppressive fire. He couldn't see why from this angle as the Megas itself was blocking his few of Storm behind him. The only thing he could see was the glow from Jehuty, which was mistaken for the rockets behind Megas. That was until the Megas moved to the right enough for him to see the second robot.

“Almost there.” Storm said waiting quietly as he tried to keep an eye on what was before as it was the only thing he could really do. More the only thing he could think of at this time. Shadow had to drop a few of the guns as he didn't try and fire through Jehuty.

“Okay, I'm here what do you need?”

“I need you to pipe Megas's energy right into Jehuty.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Look for some convenient button that is labeled funnel energy or something of that sort. Megas is full of those kinds of button, it's probably surrounded by a bunch of destroy the dreamscape buttons.” Storm said as the hairs on the back of his neck was standing on end.

“You seriously think that this thing would have a button like... that..., well I will be damned. It's right here.” Shadow said striking the button. In seconds a few of the guns pulled back and snake like metal cables began to wiggle around until they attached themselves onto the back of Jehuty. A message appeared on Shadow's screen that simply read 'rev your engines to transfer.' Shadow just this dropping Megas into neutral and slammed his foot on the gas pedal as hard as he can. He watched as the little meter on the dash slowly climbed from 'none' and move slowly towards 'good enough.' Shadow didn't release the pedal as it continued passed 'plenty' and 'more than enough'. He didn't even blink at 'no really I'm fine' until the warning lights started to go off as soon as the game started to break out of the gauge of 'please stop!!'. Which was in big bold letters and flashing slightly out of time with the warning lights. At this time Storm watched the filled bars in Jehuty overfill changing from the pale blue to just bright red.

“Systems over charged, firing is recommended.” Ada chimed in.

“Sweet!” Storm said before flipping on the outer speakers. “Hey Grimwand!” Grimwand watched as all this was going on.

“Yes?” He asked as the his attack was ready to blast himself.

“You spent hundreds of years trying to learn the vilest of magic. You spent that time killing ponies, destroying souls, desecrating the dead, and didn't stop there.” Storm said as he growled out his words.

“What of it?” Grimwand said needing only a clear moment to fire.

“You went to earth and killed me, just to try to do it twice.”

“And?”

“I think it's time for you to face your judgement.” Storm growls as to Grimwand’s view the glowing silhouettes of hundreds even thousands of ponies, changelings, and a few diamond dogs began to appear around both Jehuty and Megas. If the light show before didn't scare Grimwand, this sure as hell did.

“You tried trick me into falling for your little ploy, you even tried to get me to kill myself in a way.” Shadow tacked on. “It's time to face the end Grimwand.”

“I will not be beaten.” Grimwand roared as he put everything he had into the spell he was ready to fire. Behind Megas and Jehuty the eclipse began to shift as the hold sign of the mare in the moon and a stylized sun overlapped in dark image with searing white lines. The feet of the Dragonzord Zs changed from that to the image behind them and shot force into a ball that placed itself in front of the rotating harmonious energy before them.

“These souls of ours grow with an awesome power.” The combined voices of Shadow, Storm, and all the silhouettes said as they all began to glow brighter. “This burning force tells us to defeat you!” Grimwand watched in horror before he fired his spell at the two of them. It was now or never, and he was for sure not going out without taking both of them out with him. “Take this! Our love, our anger, and all of our sallow!” All of the silhouettes flew into the ring of energy combining with it forcing the bars on Storm's display to match the prismatic energy before him. With one final roar out of them they fired it while screaming with all of their might “Eclipse Harmony Cannon!”

The energy shot out completely swallowing the blacking beam of magic that was flying back at them. The energy didn't even stop a nanosecond as it barreled through it, like a hurricane through a small town. When the energy connected with Grimwand the dreamscape changed around them as the multitude of colors left them in a void of white. There was no Megas, Jehuty, the monstrosity form of Grimwand, the eclipse, floating islands, or even the dark sky. All that stood there was Firestorm, Shadowstorm, and the smoking barely standing form of Grimwand with his right arm completely gone, as well as good chucks removed from all over his body. The more notable part was the right half of his face was gone as well. Oozing out of each wound was a black fluid that could be mistaken for blood.

“Is that it? That was all you had?” Grimwand said before coughing up spots of blood. “You can not defeat me, you worthless insects.” He spat at them but his blood never touched them. Shadowstorm pulled out a gun aiming to finished the job. Firestorm held up his hand to stop him.

“No, this is over.” He said before slowly stepping closer.

“So you'll do it yourself? I bet you have some flashy way of doing it. Show boating prick that you are.” Grimwand said as he knew he had nothing left after putting everything of him into that last spell.

“No Grimwand.” Firestorm said stopping only a few feet before him. “I'm only going to say this and put an end to it all.”

“Then say your peace.” Grimwand said spitting a second blob of blood at Firestorm. It landed on his cheek and a drop streaked down. Firestorm didn't even care at this point.

“You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you absolutely have been found wanting.” Firestorm said before a shard of crystal formed from his right hand as he swung back and thrust it forward. The crystal pierced into Grimwand's heart sending a shock into his system. “Welcome to your new world, I hope you rot in it.” Firestorm growled as all of Grimwand's body began to glow a pale brown. In seconds the glow covered his body and was pulled into the shard leaving the once pale silver crystal the pale brown that Grimwand's body took and the image of a wand with a skull on it followed by a trailing swish of star filled magic appeared in it. Firestorm brought up the crystal to his sight line.

“What did you do?” Shadow said stepping closer to inspect it.

“I gave him what he wanted.” Firestorm said as the crystal receded into his hand. “Just not the way he wanted.” With that he turned to Shadowstorm. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Shadow asked confused.

“You could have just left me to die and take over the body for yourself, but you didn't.” Firestorm said looking back at him.

“Well... I'm more banking on a new body to be honest. This one has too many miles on it. I doubt I would get a decent trade for it.” He said flatly. A few seconds passed in silence between them before they both broke out laughing like two hyenas.

“I will do what I can, I won't make promises but I will try.” Firestorm said after he could bring his laughter down to a minimum.

“I'm not worried, just don't get us killed before then.” Shadowstorm said holding out a fist towards Firestorm.

“I will try, again no promises.” Firestorm said returning it with a fist bump as the white vale covered them both and they disappeared.

***---***

It was a few minutes before my eyes opened to show me I wasn't in the caves in the dark side of Canterlot. From what I could tell, this was my new room that I had a few days stay under my belt. The beeping of a heart monitor was playing to my right as I turned to watch it display my not slowing heartbeat. Besides that I noticed the detailing sounds of snoring around me. I slowly moved myself so I was sitting up a bit and I saw Twilight sleeping where her flank was in a chair but her upper body was laid on the bed and her hoof was on top of mine. I saw Rarity curled up on a sofa, Dash and Applejack shared a love seat. Shining was out cold on a blanket on the floor with Cadence. I don't know where Fluttershy and Pinkie were from my point of view. I turned my gaze around and came in direct eye line of a set of glowing teal eyes.

“Awake I see.” Luna said over the link.

“It seems so...” I replied back trying to move a little. My legs gave a twinge of pain as well as my wing.

“I wouldn't suggest you move much. You've been in recovery from the tunnel collapse. That was two weeks ago.” She said getting up and moving closer to me.

“So I was stuck in there for two weeks?” I asked as I tried to deal with my scrambled memories. “It felt like a few days tops.”

“The dream world can do that. Days can be weeks, and seconds could be years. What transpired in there?”

“Couldn't you see it?”

“No, something was preventing me from peering into your dreams and talking to you directly.” She asked.

“Makes sense, if you were able to pop in you would have been able to drag me out of that.” I said piecing things back together out of the dream logic I had to work with for that whole nightmare.

“Tell me what happened.” Which I did, I explained from what I could remember. I told her what I had faced from the beginning of this. I went from talking about the fog rolling in and swallowing every bit of Canterlot to the overly magical Chrysalis. Something dropped onto my chest as I shifted up more and the blanket rolled down a bit. I magically lifted it up to see a tear drop shaped pendant adorn in a golden trim that accented the silver center. The embedded smile on one side and the hysterical laughing face on the other side with one having aquamarine gems in both sets of eyes. I blinked for a moment before my eyes widen as I remembered what this was.

“The laughter artifact!” I shouted over the link not thinking about it for a moment. The soft groans of somepony waking up could be heard as I watched the tired form of Cadence slide into my view from the floor.

“Why does somepony have to yell at this hour?” She said out loud before she looked around for the source of the sound. Her gaze dropped to both Luna and I as we stared back at her. She blinked for a few moments before she gasped in surprise. “Storm you're awake!” Her voice was loud enough I bet ponies in Ponyville could hear that clear as day. Which I had noticed it was probably midnight when I woke up. At this point the sounds of other ponies getting up. Well all but Shining Armor who simply rolled over muttering something about going back to sleep. “Get up lazy, Firestorm's awake!” Cadence said using her magic to shake her husband, and I couldn't help but laugh a bit at this. Mainly because before coming to Equestria some people had to do the same to me.

“What?” Shining said and to watch him shoot straight up like that. Admittedly was a little comical with everything else. Rarity gave a little yawn as she looked around pulling the eye mask she had on up to see me looking at her. She blinked for a few moments before Dash being the gung ho mare I expect her to be. Turned on the light blinding the hell out of everypony.

“Ah!” The group of us said as I tried to move my right foreleg up to block it only to find that it wasn't attached... or even here. Finally after my eyes decided to dilate so I can see again. Dash was up in the air above me.

“Dude! You're finally awake!” She said.

“Did I miss something?” I asked as I already knew what she was referring to but the smart ass in my couldn't resist screwing with her.

“Did you miss something? Dude you have been in a magical coma for like ever! What the hey happened?!” She asked getting into my face.

“Yeah sugar cube, what happened? The princesses said you were in some kind of accident and that you injured you hind legs and wing.” Applejack said while fighting the urge to yawn. At this I was reminded about it and raised up the covers to see that both of my hind legs were indeed covered in a type of bandage. Not as thin as the one's I had to put on while my ribs healed. These looked like the heavy duty version of them. I also noticed braces on both legs, most likely there to help me move. My wing was also covered in bandages with a light cast over it. So I told them the simple version of why I went into the tunnels and my guess at what really happened. Luna seemed to agree with me that this seemed like a trap after all this.

“By the way, what happened with Nightling?” I asked.

“She's sleeping in with Pinkie and Fluttershy. She's fine beyond a few scrapes.” Luna explained which made me feel better.

“Alright, that puts my mind at ease.” Was all I got out before finally after sleeping like a rock. Twilight slowly woke up, and something I should state about this mare. Her brain when being woken up out of a sound sleep she wasn't prepared to have happen. She's rather... slow to realize things. She blinked for a few moments as her gaze turned around to see Luna, this was followed by her panning her gaze around and stopping at Cadence who was maybe a few inches away from me. Then she noticed something on the bed as her hoof was still on mine. She followed the curve of my foreleg up to my face as I watched her gently. She blinked as one of her ears where flatten down and the other one was pointing straight up giving this cute look of confusion. That with the messy bed mane she had I had to outright call her adorable right then and there. But she beat me to the punch by exclaiming.

“Storm!” She said in surprise as both ears pointed up as she leaped at me. Lucky for me Luna was fast on the draw or spell casting and caught Twilight in the air.

“Remember Twilight Sparkle your coltfriend is still injured.” She said before placing her back on her spot.

“Ah... right.” She said facing the princess before she turned to me, leaned over giving me one hell of a kiss. Let me clarify one thing for everypony. Twilight rarely uses tongue in her kisses, and in this case. It was running wild. She pulled back for a moment causing me to blink in surprise as she leaned in closer while she climbed up and placed her head on my shoulder. “I missed you Storm, you had me worried when I was told about what happened. Then to find out that you hadn't woken up after the rest of the cycle before I could come up.” Cycle? Oh right, estrus was still going on while I was in there. “I was scared Storm.” She said and I could this in her body language as well as the shake in her voice.

“I'm sorry that I scared you, Twilight, and that goes to everypony. I didn't mean for that to happen and to put anypony in danger along with me.” I said more to the fact that Nightling was there with me during all that.

“We know, she told us all about it and how you did what you could.” Twilight said before Rarity chimed in.

“Twilight you're one lucky mare to have such a heroic stallion.” I could already see the bright blush. “A prince in Shining Armor.” Okay now she was off to la la land again as everypony could see that she was daydreaming.

“Besides present company.” Shining tacked on with a smile. Cadence gave a shake of her head and shoved her husband a little for that.

“So... besides the complete worry I put everypony through, can somepony please bring me up to speed what I missed?” I asked and to simply a rather long list of events. I had received a unique package labeled with a simple returned address of D.D. and nothing else. I had already gotten a good idea of who sent that. Of course that didn't stop Celestia and Luna having the packaged scanned roughly thirty times. I couldn't blame her after the whole Nightmare artifact that I had gotten in the mail, some precaution had to be taken. Speaking of which from what I was told the return address of that lead to a very weird event. Luna sending no less than eight of her highly trained guards to the location that was literally in the middle of nowhere. It seems that either as a sick joke or a sense of miss direction. Had put a lone mailbox in a field all by itself. My guess was one of Grimwand's ideas to lead to nothing more than a dead end, no pun intended.

Other then that a few key things happened. Luna informed me that Burning Scale, who I met at Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. had asked to see if I was alright. It seems that my incident was reported on by a few of the major papers, which was easily available to the young ponies of the school. So it was set up a special way for him to contact me through the mail as the ruling alicorns had ways to. For a general public had to use the equestrian seal to send a message to any of the four alicorns. There was a top priority seal that had to be placed in the bottom right corner of the letter or packaged to get through. Celestia's was a large stylized sun with a smaller crescent moon within the center of it. Luna was much the same but reversed to the point that with in the missing spot to make the crescent moon whole was to be a smaller sun. Cadence had a heart within a diamond, while Shining had much the a Shield with a star in the center of it within the diamond. Luna informed me that for me it was a fireball with three slash marks laid over it. Clever in a way and I had to give credit that did make things simple if ponies knew. So this was the method that he could get a hold of me. In return all I had to do was sent my letter to the castle with Burning Scale's name on it and the staff would make sure he got it.

Speaking of young dronies, Seared Wind and his younger brother Ember Seed was informed that Applejack was here in Canterlot. From what Luna has explained over the link that she had made the necessary arrangements for a place to live. Namely the house I use to own before my own storm caused my mother to destroy it with my own body. Oh the irony was not lost on me, but I didn't really have much to say about it. Anyway, all I had left to do was talk to Applejack about it later to see if Seared Wind will be able to work on the apple family farm. If not she had already set up a backup plan that she didn't go into details about.

This lead up to the events with Blueblood, who since my being out had done two things. One had a lot of workers fired from safety guidelines not followed. Celestia had overturned this until a full review was done, from what I have been told it is still ongoing. The second was to have both Seared Wind and Ember Seed thrown out of the castle by every guard that would listen to the whiny twit. Luna decided to supersede this one for me since I was unable to do so to the point that Blueblood was instead thrown out of the Castle and his accounts frozen for a total of two days as a means to learn a lesson. From what I was told, it didn't as he was being tailed by a few guards to make sure he kept out of trouble. On the high note of all this, to find out that a bar tending mare cleaned Blueblood's clock good and left him with a shiner that I would love to see right now that he couldn't do anything about as it would land his royal flank in jail. I learned this the easy way, watching idiots like Blueblood. Don't you ever slap a lady in the ass and not expect to get a violent reaction out of them. I digress at this point as something important was reminded to me as my right stump twitched.

“Luna.” I started over the link I had. “I'm going to need to talk to you, Celestia, and Cadence alone. That includes no Twilight.” I said watching her eye me for a moment.

“Is this pertaining to what had happened during your coma?” She replied over the link as well.

“Yes, also I will need a towel before you have everypony leave.” I requested.

“Why?” Cadence chimed in.

“Because I'm about to do something very painful and this will keep me from getting blood on the bed.” I answered which caused both mares eyes to widen.

“What's wrong Princess Luna?” Applejack asked and I decided to cut her off.

“I told her I was in need of a towel and for Fluttershy's father.” I said which was the truth... well the part with Fluttershy's father which was a little bit of an afterthought.

“What are you planning to do?” Luna asked.

“It's one of the matters I will need to discuss with all of you once we are alone.” I said as Applejack brought over a mouth full of towels from the bathroom. “Thank you Applejack.”

“It's ain't a problem Storm, what are friends for.” She commented back.

“So true”

“If everypony would be kind to please excuse us as I need to discuss something with Storm here alone.” She said to everypony but tacked on over the link so Cadence and I could hear. “Cadence would you be kind to get my sister for us?”

“Of course Auntie Luna” She said before everypony left, but Luna, Twilight and I.

“I'm sorry but this includes you Twilight.” Luna said.

“But Princess Luna, Storm just woke up. I want to make sure everything is alright.”

“Twilight I will be fine, it's Princess Luna. If anything does happen, I know I'm in safe hooves.” I said hoping to subside Twilight's worries. That and to drive the point home I gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Why don't you go find us a good book to read together after Luna and I finish talking?” This was enough to get Twilight to leave, as much as I hated to cut Twilight out of the circle on this. I wanted to discuss this with all three alicorns before I even approached Twilight with what I now know. She left with only a smile, she will find the next volume of Daring Do for us to read together. This left Luna and I in the room alone together.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about?” Luna asked after a few minutes of silence. I took a deep breath and asked a question I didn't think Luna was ready for.

“Do you know where the grave of Clover the Clever is at?”

-End of Chapter-

Author's Notes:

So... this is the end of the Nightmare arc that has been happening since pitfall. So... I wonder at what point did everyone figure it out? As for the battle in this chapter, I want to first apologize if everyone didn't like the third person perspective on most of this chapter. I wanted to practice more and this gave me a good reason. As for how did Storm be able to "Defeat" Grimwand here, power was he and Storm were pretty matched because of the Dream Essence, but if you noticed at one key point something changed majorly. Also... admittedly I've had this fight stuck in my head for months leading up to writing this chapter and really it was pretty fun having nerd moments all over it. I'm sorry that this wasn't as pony heavy but this was a major point in the story. That being said... what did Storm do with Grimwand? What will happen now? Well you will have to find out in the next chapter. As my editor is going through it currently so. I hope the wait was worth it. Also sorry about the fake out death in the previous chapter as Twilight is one of my favorite character, kind of hurt to do so. But don't worry she's alive and still kicking. See you in the next chapter.