Shepard’s adventure

I hate to put it again but just so that you know full well what you’re going into Major spoilers for Mass Effect 3 do not read if you haven’t finished the game.

Commander Ethan Shepard sat in the grass and thought about how all of the decisions in his life had somehow led him to this point, he still didn’t understand where he was or how he had got here. He had finally defeated the Reapers and in the process of fused synthetic and organic DNA into one, he had willingly given up his life in the process. So why was he here in this random meadow in the body of a small horse with a horn sticking out of his head? As he sat there Ethan wondered about what had happened to his comrades and crew, his thoughts returned the most to Ashley. How had his choices affected the fate of the galaxy, what happened to earth, and most importantly why was he pony?!

“Alright Shepard get a hold of yourself you can figure this out, but first you need to see if you can find any civilization.” He told himself quietly, he set off in a random direction until he caught sight of his reflection in a small stream, to his surprise his coat was the same color as his armor, and even more surprising was the tattoo that had appeared on his right flank. It was a red stylized version of the N7 logo surrounded by a blue circle. “Ok now that’s new.” He told himself unsteadily then he asked “I wonder if I’ve been indoctrinated and this is how my mind is keeping me sane? If it is then it’s doing a really bad job.”

He continued on his chosen path until he found a small dirt road that looked like it ran to a town that he saw in the distance, he set off down it at a light trot. As he drew nearer he stopped in open mouth astonishment at the sight before his eyes, everywhere he looked there were ponies, and not just unicorns or normal ponies but he also spotted several flying ones. They all ignored him and went about their daily business except for an oddly collard pink one who bounced up to him.
“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie welcome to Ponyville what’s your name?” The pony asked in a bubbly voice. Shepard was caught to off guard to talk for a moment before he mustard up the courage to say.

“I’m Commander Ethan Shepard, Alliance Navy, and first human Specter.” The Pink pony eyed him for a moment.

“That’s a long name Commander Ethan Shepard, Alliance Navy, and first human Specter. Would you mind if I just call you Shepard?” she asked him innocently, Shepard sighed.

“That would be great thanks.” He told her, and then he asked “Would you mind bringing me to your best scientist maybe I can get some answers there?”

“Oki doki loci” Said Pinkie who then began to lead Shepard down the main street of Ponyville while she started to tell him a story about how she had stopped something called a parasprite infestation. Shepard had no idea what she was talking about but he decided to just nod his head whenever she turned around to look at him. Pinkie finished her story right as they arrived at a giant tree, Pinkie led him inside and Shepard found himself surrounded by books. “Twilight some pony called Commander Ethan Shepard, Alliance Navy, and first human Specter wants to see you!” Pinkie called.

“I’ll be right down Pinkie.” Somepony called back, Shepard couldn’t believe that he had just thought that. On the stairs emerged a purple unicorn who was using what Shepard assumed were biotics to levitate a book above her head, Shepard wasn’t sure how he knew it was a female but something told him she was. “So what do you want to be known as, because I’m guessing that Pinkie couldn’t tell the difference between a name and a rank?” The unicorn asked him.

“Commander or Shepard works fine.” Shepard told her

“I’m Twilight by the way, so why are you here?” Twilight asked him.

“I don’t know, the last thing I knew I was sacrificing myself for the sake of organic life, then I woke up in a grassy field looking like this.” He told her earnestly causing her to raise an eyebrow.

“What do you mean looking like this, haven’t you always looked like this?” She asked him with a slight edge of confusion creeping into her voice.

“No I used to be human, now I’m a unicorn.” Shepard replied

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of humans Commander, but you look like you’re a truthful pony so I’ll ask Princess Celestia if she knows anything about them. Spike I need you to take a letter!” Twilight called, from a side room emerged a lizard like creature who was carrying a pen and a piece of paper.

“Who’s this Twilight?” he asked when he saw Shepard

“This is Commander Shepard, and I need you to take a letter telling Celestia that he says that he was something called a human before he woke up in a grassy field just outside of Ponyvill.” Spike looked at Shepard quizzically but did as he was told; he then threw it into the air and bathed it in green fire.

“Why did you do that?” Shepard asked slightly shocked at the small reptile’s behavior.

“It’s magic fire, it just sends the letter to the Princess.” Twilight told him nonchalantly “So are you hungry, it’s around lunch time anyways?” Suddenly Shepard noticed the fact that his stomach felt like it hadn’t eaten in years and, it voiced its displeasure with a loud growl causing Twilight to giggle.

“Yes please!” Shepard said while trying not to blush with embarrassment, Twilight led him into an oddly well appointed kitchen and pulled out several apple filled tarts.

“These tarts were baked by my friend Apple Jack, she’s one of the best cooks in all of Equestria!” Twilight told Shepard proudly to which Shepard nodded and took another. Suddenly there was a loud bang which came from upstairs causing Shepard to jump out of his chair and grab a knife from a nearby counter.

“Get behind me!” he told her hurriedly, in response she pulled the knife out of his grasp with her biotics and told him.

“Don’t worry that was probably just Dash crashing into the house, she does that. Trust me it’s nothing to get worked up over. Besides I really doubt that that knife could actually protect you from anything that lives around here, they tend to be really hard to harm.” To confirm her theory a rainbow maned pegasus flew into the room excitedly and said.

“Twilight you won’t believe it a big group of new ponies just got here and they keep saying that they’re looking for sompony called Commander Shepard!” Before Twilight could say anything Shepard interrupted her.

“Wait what! Did they mention their names?” The rainbow headed pegasus nodded and said.

“Yeah I think one of them was called Joker and another was named Garrus.”

This is a trial run, if you guys like it I’ll write another chapter

Thanks to the overwhelming amount of support I have written another chapter, seriously people thanks, I didn’t think it was possible to get that many page views that fast. Anyways this story is moving a little fast but it will slow down once I get past the first three or four chapters. Also sorry in advance for jumping from so many points of view. One more thing I’m kind of color impaired so if I get a color wrong sorry.

chapter two

Shepard ran out of the library as fast as his pony legs would carry him and shoved his way through the crowd surrounding a very oddly colored group of ponies. One mare was almost chrome colored with a mane that was yellow with strakes of red. Another was a blue unicorn with a blue mane; one was a shade of purple with a silver mane; while the last mare was charcoal black with a matching mane. Of the three stallions one was a brown pegasus with a darker brown mane; one was green with a blue mane and half of his face was covered scars, and the final one was tanish.

“Well would you look at that, you look adorable Shepard.” The scarred one said in Garrus’s voice.

“I wouldn’t be talking Garrus, I had no idea scars could be so cute.” Shepard replied while he accepted an oddly balanced hug from Garrus.

“I’ve known that for a while.” The purple mare said in Tali’s voice casting an admiring glance towards Garrus.

“Ok so commander would you mind explaining to me what the hey happened inside of the Crucibal, wait why the hey did I say that, oh you are bucking kidding me!” the brown pegasus exclaimed in Joker’s voice.

“Jeff I believe that something here is disrupting our normal speech patterns, yet I can find no evidence of what.” Said the chrome pony in EDI’s voice

“Thanks EDI I figured that out by myself, anyways Commander what happened?”

“Yes Shepard what happened, I thought that I lost you again?” The black mare said in Ashley’s voice. Before he could say anything Twilight wormed her way through the crowed and shouted.

“Ok folks show’s over, I’ll let you know if we need any more assistance.” The crowd dispersed with surprising speed although they did grumble about not being up to date. “Few, now that that’s over why don’t you all follow me back to my library so that you can catch up without the eyes of everypony staring at you.” She told them. His crew looked at Shepard for confirmation and he nodded his head and motioned for them to follow Twilight. They made quite a group walking down Ponyville’s main street with Shepard in right behind Twilight, being flanked by Ashley and Garrus on his right, with Joker and EDI on his left.
The rest just fell in behind the first five.

When they made it back into the library Spike almost jumped in surprise at the sight of Garrus’s face to which Garrus smiled crinkling his scars in the process and asked.

“What’s the matter kid, never seen a scar?”

“Garrus be nice he’s obviously young.” Tali scolded Garrus who rolled his eyes and muttered something unintelligible. Twilight walked into the kitchen and returned seconds later carrying a large platter of apple tarts which she set on a side table and invited everyone to eat.

“Back to my question Commander what happened on the Crucibale?” Joker asked. Shepard told them about what had happened with the Illusive Man and how Anderson had died. Then he told them about the Catalyst and finally he told them about his choice to fuse all organics and synthetics. When he was finished Garrus let out a low whistle, Joker just looked at Shepard in shock, while Ashley put her arm around him.

“That certainly answers many of my previous questions…” EDI said before she was suddenly cut off by the outbursts of laughter that flowed from Rainbow Dash and Twilight, along with several currently unknown ponies who had entered the library while Shepard had been talking.

“Are you guys for real?” Dash asked she couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice “I mean you expect us to believe that you all travel in ‘space ships’ and fought a giant war against being who wanted to wipe out all sentient life, oh and then you somehow wind up here as ponies, what kind of scam are you trying to pull?”

“Yeah and if we told our people this they would be laughing their flanks off, stupid filter, and hauling us off to a mental asylum.” Joker told her.

“Then again we did save the Galaxy three times over so I think they would give us some credit.” Said James

“You mean we saved the galaxy three times James, you were only there once.” Garrus told him rolling his eyes.

“Still if you want us believe you then you’re going to need some proof that you aren’t all a bunch of liars, because honestly I’m tired of humoring you!” Twilight told them seriously. “You’re all either telling the truth, lying, or delusional and frankly I can’t tell which is worse.”

“You know Sugarcube I’m the element of honesty and it really seemed to me that they were telling the truth.” A blonde pony with an orange coat wearing a cowboy hat told Twilight, she had been the only one not laughing.

“AJ Darling you can’t seriously believe this dribble.” Said a white unicorn.

“Considerin that this is comin from the one who still keeps ‘Tom’ in her room I wouldn’t be calling other ponies crazy Rarity.” Joker meanwhile was laughing his flanks off, he held up a hoof in apology before he finally got out

“I’m sorry Miss no offense but a pony who is a cowgirl, that’s just so unbelievable!” Garrus hit him lightly in the back of the head and said slowly.

“Joker the cowgirl pony is defending us to her friends who think, and not without good reason mind you, that we’re insane, Shut Up!”

“There is a very simple way to solve this dilemma, one that I believe that everyone is overlooking. Why don’t we simple ask this pony Luna who rescued us from certain death as the mass relay was collapsing.” Said Liara, the room was suddenly dead silent all of the other ponies gasped.

“She isn’t lying.” AJ said with certain clarity.

“Well this day keeps on getting more and more interesting.” said Garrus

***

Agent K was sitting around a small conference table surrounded by agents, A, L, M, and T. The room was shrouded in shadow and nopony could see the other’s faces, they didn’t need to of course, they already knew each other very well.

“Halleluiah Shepard finally got his lazy flank here!” K enthused drawing annoyed looks from the other agents except L.

“Simmer down K now that he’s here the real work begins.” Agent A said in a well practiced commanding officers voice.

“Yes but now we finally get some action, the rest of you don’t know what it’s been like, I’ve been here for years the rest of you just showed up recently!”K replied drawing sighs from the others; they had heard it many times before.

“K can we please keep this meeting on task? Like agent A said now the real work begins.” Agent M told K. “Agent S how goes the work?” M called over her shoulder.

“Slower thanks to your constant interruption, and I still think that M should have been my callsign!” Said agent S rapidly barely stopping for breath as he stepped into the room.

“Mordin we’ve gone over this you’re agent S because you were the only salarian, plus your last name is Solus.”

“Your first argument is invalid, if that were true then Thane would be agent D, but I digress. The work goes slowly and will continue to go slowly as long as you keep pestering me!” the former salarian told them before he left the room in a huff.

“Way to go Miranda, what was it that Jack called you? Oh I remember… cheerleader.” Agent K said sarcastically, Miranda almost got up from the table but she was stopped by a commanding bark from Agent A

“All of you be quite we have things to do and the sooner we can get out of this musty basement the better!”

“We must watch all of the moving pieces with care. One wrong move could get Shepard Commander killed, again.” Said Agent L

***

“You’re bucking kidding me!” Twilight almost shouted as she read the letter from Celestia. “Apparently they’re telling the truth, although Luna wasn’t supposed to have done it. Now it’s too late to reverse so we might as well learn to live with having these ponies around.” AJ looked smug.

“I told you Twilight not a dishonest heart in the bushel.” Twilight sighed and facehoofed before she turned to her guests who were currently talking on the ground floor eating more tarts provided by AJ

“I guess now we need to find a place or places for them all to sleep.” Twilight said despondently.

“Leave that to me Twi I can get them something extra special good!” Pinkie said as she bounced up and down “I just need to go and say high to Deadpool and Dresden real fast, be back soon.” Pinkie told them before jumping out the open window and vanishing from sight.

“Should we be concerned about this?” Twilight asked her friends who had known Pinkie longer then her. They just shook their heads, Twilight sighed again, it was going to be a long week.

***

“Well that was interesting.” Ashley told Shepard later that evening rolling over to the other side of the bed that they shared.

“You’re telling me!” Shepard replied.

“So what happens now Shepard, do we stay here, or do we try to find a way back?”

“Ash I hate to remind you but I died back there, twice and technically I should have died the first time to, I really don’t want to go back.” Shepard told her softly

“You think I don’t know?” Ash responded anger seeping into her voice “Buck Ethan I went through it to, we all did! You know what; it sounds like you’re going soft on me!” Shepard let her anger roll over him like a wave.

“That wasn’t what you were saying a moment ago Ash, I think it was something about softer.” Shepard told her with a smile on his face, Ash snorted but with laughter not anger.

“Don’t die on me again Ethan; I couldn’t deal with losing you and then you coming back to life again!”

“I don’t plan on it Ash, now let’s get some sleep, we have a meeting with royalty tomorrow.”

“Ha, they are going to regret that!”

***

Shepard walked down into the commons of the large house that Pinkie had somehow managed to build in twenty minutes to find that he and Ash were the last one’s to arrive.

“Hey Shepard did you notice the fact that I can bucking FLY!” Joker yelled as he soared over Shepard’s head.

“Actually Joker I assumed that the wings were for swimming.” Shepard replied smiling. He saw Garrus and Tali sitting in a corner talking quietly. “So did you two have a good night?” Shepard asked them.

“Brilliant, these bodies are a lot more flexible then the suites.” Tali replied

“Likewise.” Shepard told them. “So who’s coming with me to see the princesses?” he asked.

“I think that it would be best if you only brought three of us with you commander, we wouldn’t want to give them the impression that we’re hostile.” Liara told him. “I suggest EDI, Garrus and myself.”

“Anyone else want to come?” Shepard asked his assembled crew.

“Not me, I tend to make bad impressions on people above my pay grade.” Joker said

“I want to come just to see their faces.” Ash said and Shepard motioned her over to where he was standing. The others gave their reasons for declining. Shepard and his party left the house heading for Twilight’s house where they were supposed to meet the chariot that would take them to the puny named Canterlot. When they got there they were met by a large golden painted chariot which was being drawn by twelve muscular pegasi wearing what looked like Roman centurion armor. Twilight and her friends were also there, excluding Pinkie Pie who had said something about helping the districts fight the Capitol, whatever that meant.

“Why do I get the feeling that they think we’re dangerous?” Garrus asked Liara sardonically.

“If they know our track record then it is actually a good thing in this case, it means that they respect us.” She replied

“Oh I know, I just don’t like them trying to intimidate us, it’s the principle of the thing.” He told her.

“I didn’t think that anything short of a Reaper could scare the King of Calibrations.” Shepard interrupted quietly drawing laughter from everyone but EDI and the other ponies.

“If you’re all done snarking at each other then we really need to get to Celestia and Luna, besides snarking is my job!” Twilight told them in a huff.

Royal Inquires

“You know you aren’t allowed to meddle in the affairs of other universes Luna.”

“But sister he was robbed in a most vulgar fashion that we simply couldn’t allow, besides it isn’t as if you’ve never meddled, like with a certain green clad super soldier!”

“That’s different! All I did was send his ship on a course to be intercepted by the planet!”

“And what about the doctor?”

“Oh shut up Luna, you enjoy his witty company just as much as I do, besides we needed someone like him around. The point being that at the most I’ve helped three people, you’ve helped around eight maybe even more!” Suddenly a guard stepped into throne room and cleared his throat until he got their attention.

“My ladies they are almost here.”

“Thank you for the warning.” Celestia told him with a sigh, this day was going to be longer then she thought.

***

The first five minutes of the trip were filled with the awkward silence of being surrounded by strangers, then Shepard started to whistle a familiar tune and the solemn atmosphere broke. Ash, Garrus, and Liara burst into laughter. The ponies around them looked on in confused silence until Twilight asked.

“What the feather is so funny?” Garrus looked at her still laughing before he finally said.

“Elevators, that’s the same tune that they used to played over the elevators!” this got several more odd looks.

“And what about elevator music is funny?”

“It would take way to long for us to explain, let’s just say that they weren’t the fastest elevators.” It grew quiet for a few moments before Liara asked AJ

“What did you mean when you said that you were the Element of Honesty Apple Jack?”

“Well that means that I wield the Element of Honesty of course.”

“And that means what exactly?”

“Yall don’t know about the Elements of Harmony?” AJ replied confused.

“AJ darling they came from somewhere completely different, how would they have?” asked the white unicorn.

“Well shucks Rarity I thought everypony knew about the Elements of Harmony.” Twilight sighed and launched into a quick lecture on the history of Equestria and of the Elements. When she was done the travelers lapsed into silence until the chariot began to angle towards a large city located on a cliff

“Nice view.” Commented Garrus idly as the city of Canterlot spread out beneath them.

“This here is our capitol city Canterlot so it should be.” AJ told him proudly

“Not a bad place for a siege either, there aren’t many places for an enemy to approach in force and you can see the surrounding land for miles. The best way to do it I think would be to starve it out, there don’t seem to be any farms and considering the equine nature of the ponies I doubt that they could eat fish.”

“All yall think about is war aint it?”

“Sorry old habit, I've spent my whole life fighting one war or another.” Garrus replied with a note of tiredness in his voice

“Your entire life; that must have been awesome!” commented Dash who was flying next to the chariot.

“Oh there have been high notes, like when we stormed the Collector Base or tacking down and finishing off Cerberus, but most of the time you’re mostly just worried about making it out alive. Fortunately for me I had Shepard there to watch my back, without him I would have died a long time ago.”

“But, that would mean that you’ve, k, kil, killed ponies!” Fluttershy yelped in fright and backed into Twilight away from the scarred pony.

“We only kill when we have to Fluttershy, life is sacred but sometimes the only way to get anything done is to kill and when it’s needed we do it with heavy hearts because no one else can or will.” Shepard said softly.

“That’s a stupid answer! Nopony should ever have to die if it were me…” she was cut off by Liara.

“If you don’t believe us ask one of these guards, killing is a part of their job description.” One of the guards nodded silently refusing to look Fluttershy in the face.

“But aren’t there laws against killing?” Fluttershy asked in confusion but before anypony could reply the chariot went in for a landing in front of the castle.

“Well you don’t see those every day.” Said Ash not quite in awe but certainly impressed by the scale of the castle. They were shown down a long passage way to a large throne room where they found two ponies with both wings and horns waiting for them sitting atop tall thrones, although they looked more like actual horses to Shepard.

“Princesses Luna and Celestia I presume?” Shepard asked the two when he drew into speaking range drawing shocked gasps and startled looks from several members of their party.

“Normally it would be proper court etiquette to bow before princesses but I suppose you can’t be expected to know anything about that could you?” said the White princess sardonically, a smile settled onto both Ash and Garrus’s faces, they knew what was coming.

“Miss I’ve been sent to an entirely new land in an completely new body, and I’ve only been here for one day, if you expected courtly manners from me then you’re more crazy then the Illusive Man was.” The Blue Princess turned to her sister who looked like she was about to roast Shepard and shook her head.

“Commander it is an honor, we are Princess Luna and we are pleased to have saved you, forgive our sister she was displeased by our decision to save your life and the lives of your crew.”

“For which I heartily thank you Princess, I would offer you my services in whatever you require.” Shepard told the Luna sincerely.

“Anything?” Luna asked a seductive tone entering her voice. Ash snorted in anger and slammed her hoof into the floor causing a loud bang.

“Over my dead body!” Ash said softly a hint of anger coloring her voice.

“ENOUGH!” shouted Celestia causing the temperature in the room to increase by ten degrees. “Luna you’re lucky I haven’t already grounded you, and you black pony if you ever threaten my sister again I will char the flesh from your body before I send you flying into the sun! Am I understood?” she asked with great finality.

“I would advise you to withdraw your threat princess; you don’t want to know what happens to the people who threaten Shepard’s friends.” Garrus told her matter-of-factly causing Celestia to turn in his direction and blast a small flare of heat at him. Garrus just laughed as the heat washed over him. “Miss I’ve felt hotter flames while taking a shower.” By this time the court had become hushed and many of the ponies were backing away from the new arrivals.

“Who are you to talk to me this way?” Celestia inquired the room temperature growing even hotter.

“Apparently someone with greater self control, your Majesty.” Liara said cuttingly before Garrus could answer. Twilight flinched, she had only seen Celestia this angry only once before and that had been around Discord. But instead of the angry outburst she had been expecting Twilight heard only laughter, it was coming from Luna.

“Sister what is wrong with you?” Luna asked when she was done laughing “You’re letting yourself get worked up over nothing except a minor breach of protocol from ponies who know no better, which is our department anyways.” Celestia’s anger cooled from a boil to a slight simmer and a confused look came over her face.

“You’re, You're right sister, Shepard we’ll call you back in a few hours, until then I trust that Twilight and her friends are more than capable of showing you the sights of Canterlot.” As they walked out of the throne room Garrus snickered

“Commander no one else could possibly annoy authority figures as much as you do, it’s one of the reasons that I’ve followed you to the end of the universe and back.”

“Thanks Garrus I’ll make sure I put that into my résumé next time I’m looking for a job.” Shepard replied, Twilight and her friends looked worried, they knew something was wrong with Celestia, they just didn’t know what it was.

***

Back in their common room Celestia and Luna were locked in deep conversation.

“I don’t know what happened to me, I was just so full of anger it was like there was somepony else in my head telling me what to do!” Celestia told her sister worriedly.

“Discord?” her sister asked

“No, not him I would have recognized it if it were him again.”

“Who then sister, it doesn’t make sense the only other one I can think of with enough sway to do that would be the Nightmare and I don’t feel her presence on you anywhere?”

“I don’t know Luna I really don’t but this means trouble mark my words!”

And the plot thickens

Sight Seeing

Celestia shuddered slightly as she appeared inside of Discord’s mind, the place was a plethora of change and disorder, Celestia whished he would tidy up but that was Discord after all, utter chaos. She found him doing some terraforming to a nearby mountain, he was so distracted by his work that he didn’t notice her until she cleared her throat causing him to jump with surprise.

“Tia what have I told you about doing things like that, I could have killed you.” He told her in mild annoyance

“I’ve bigger problems then having my avatar destroyed, I think someone or something is messing with my mind!”

“Well it wasn’t me if that’s what you’re insinuating, I respect the rules of our deal.” He told her defensively “I’m allowed to do whatever I want when I occasionally escape, as long as there are no long term problems, except for one or two ponies whose minds are slightly…unsettled. And then after some fun I allow myself to be stopped by the current bearers of the Elements” Celestia sighed she had been expecting this reaction from him.

“No I know that you had nothing to do with it, I want you to see if you can figure out who is responsible!” Discord scratched his chin carefully with one of his claws before he motioned for her to sit down in front of him.

“This brings back memories doesn’t it Tia dear?” He asked her innocently, she snorted and ignored him, their past was the only thing that stopped her from killing him, well that and frankly she found him to funny.

“Just check my mind I want to know how to reverse whatever it is that’s been done to me!” she told him in exasperation. He just chuckled to himself and set to work probing her mind to see if he could discover the source of her problem. His chuckle cut off suddenly and it sounded as if he were choking.

“No, no, no, no, my word this is horrid, I’m surprised that you’re still functioning as anything besides a walking flamethrower!” he exclaimed in surprise and horror.

“Discord what’s wrong, what’s happened to me?!” she cried in terror.

“Someone has been rewriting you mind my dear, they’ve been in the process of turning you into a mindless puppet thank yourself that you came when you did!”

“What are you talking about Discord what do you mean rewriting me!” she cried

“Well Tia if you hadn’t come here now then in a matter of days your mind would be a gray mush sloshing around inside your head leaving you wide open to assaults and control. Now I know that I have a copy of your mind in here somewhere which is fortunate otherwise I would have to start from almost scratch, and the results could be…unexpected.”

“But what’s causing it!” she yelled, from behind her she sensed him shaking his head.

“I have no idea, but I can reverse the damage and prevent more from occurring; now there’s the matter of Luna.”

“What about Luna?” Discord sighed as if he were talking to a filly, which at this point he guessed that he essentially was.

“Really Tia, if your mind is mush, then hers must be at the point of wet glue especially after her time spent as Nightmare Moon! Now hold still I’ll be done in an hour then you go and get your sister and bring her here now, I don’t care what it takes! If we don’t do it now then we’re going to have one hey of a problem on our hooves!” Discord spent the next hour doing the most intensive mental surgery of his long, long life. When she came to, Celestia stretched slowly working the kinks out of her back, legs, and wings before she turned to Discord who stood happily behind her grinning from ear to ear.

“I… I feel so much better Discord, my head is clear again for the first time in what feels like months.”

“Happy to be of service Tia, maybe once this whole mess blows over…”

“We tried that remember it ended with you being thrown out of our universe and into the warp; I don’t think you want to go through that again.” Discord sighed sadly, he may have been an admittedly evil being, but he still felt something for the white Alicorn.

“You’re probably right Tia; now go get your sister before she breaks down in a corner somewhere and starts drooling all over herself!” Celestia’s mind shot back into her body and she jolted awake with a start. She ran inside the palace and tore into her sister’s room only to find Luna eating a tart and reading a book. When Luna looked up she raised an eyebrow.

“What is it that you require of us Sister?”

“Luna someone has been destroying our minds! You need to come with me immediately so that you can be healed before you collapse!” Luna popped the last part of the tart into her mouth.

“Alright sister, if you think it’s necessary, I’ll come with you?” before it was even out of her sister’s mouth Celestia sprang on her trapping her in a net of magic that she had designed incase Discord had ever gotten out of control. “Sister what’s wrong with you? It’s me your sister Luna, don’t you know me!”

“Yes I do know you Luna, and I know that your use of the royal we is one of your deepest ingrained speech patterns! Think about it you just used singular pronouns three times!” a look of shock came over Luna’s face

“You’re right I did, what’s wrong with me?” she shouted

“Like I told you sister someone is toying with our minds.” With that Celestia slung the net of magic that net of magic that held her sister into the air above her head and headed towards the statue garden. The guards just ignored the small spectacle of the two princesses; they had seen much stranger from the pair. When they arrived in Discord’s mind Celestia found him terraforming again, but this time it looked like he was forming a fortress of some kind that was made out of a strange black rock that had chunks of purple speckling it. When he saw Luna who at this rate had reverted to just starring wide eyed with fright at everything she saw, Discord gasped in shock.

“This is much worse than I feared it would be, much worse indeed. Tia, Luna will need to be kept hospitalized for at least three weeks while I coax her mind out of wherever it has gone to hide from the madness consuming her head.”

“Three weeks?!” Celestia shouted

“Yes although that shouldn’t be a problem Canterlot has a beautiful hospital.”

“But three weeks how bad is it?”

“She doesn’t even hear us talking right now Tia, now you need to leave so that I can get to work!”

***

Shepard and company were being showed around Canterlot by Twilight and her friends when suddenly Shepard caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, it was a pony wearing a black leather jacket and carrying a load of apples on his back. Shepard wasn’t sure what about the pony caught his eye but Shepard felt like he knew the other pony from somewhere. His thoughts about the strange pony were interrupted by EDI asking a question that Shepard had wondered since he had come to Equestria.

“Miss Twilight I have been pondering why there is an image of one of my former avatars adorning my flank.” EDI asked.

“I was as well, because as much as I like the fact that I have a set of angle wings with a pair of sniper rifles on my butt I would really like to know why they are there in the first place.” Garrus seconded

“Those are called cutie marks; they appear when a pony finds his or her special talent as a way to tell other ponies what you’re good at. My star for example means that I am very talented with magic.” Twilight told them “Although I don’t understand most of yours they all seem really odd.”

“Well Garrus at least you didn’t get a book as you mark like I did.” Ash told Garrus enviously eying the impressive mark on Garrus’s flank. Before the conversation could get much farther a palace guard came running up to the group and told them that they were wanted by Celestia immediately in the hall of Elements.

“That was fast; I expected a longer wait after the fire that we set under her flank.” Liara said in surprise.

“We only get summoned to the hall of Elements in extreme emergencies like when Discord breaks out or when some great evil comes to Equestria, this must be bad!” Twilight said apprehensively.

“Well then you’re all in luck, if there’s one thing that Shepard is great at it’s killing evil monsters.” Ash told the surrounding ponies drawing an angry look from Fluttershy.

“We never have to kill things in Equestria we just blast them with high powered friendship until they are defeated.”

“Because, brainwashing is so much nicer then killing right?” Garrus commented

“These arguments are getting us nowhere and if we are going off to fight some great evil then we’re going to need to be working as a cohesive team and we can’t let a minor disagreement fracture us.” Shepard told Garrus and Ash “If they’ve found ways to avoid killing then more power to them, if it becomes unavoidable then that’s when we step in and lend a hoof, until then we’re guests here and we play by their rules.” Twilight shot Shepard a thankful look.

“Thank you Commander, now we need to back to the castle.” They set off at a brisk trot and out of the corner of his eye Shepard caught sight of the pony in the leather jacket again, Shepard knew him from somewhere he was certain. As they were walking closer towards the castle grounds a sudden sharp crack disrupted their progress followed by a spurt of blood coming off of Liara’s chest as she fell out of the air. She had intercepted a bullet headed for Shepard’s head.

“We’ve got a sniper, everypony get inside as fast as you can!” Shepard yelled above the confusion that had quickly consumed much of the street that they were walking on. “Garrus do we know where the bullet came from?”

“From the impact wound I would guess that it came from one of the taller buildings over to the east but other than that I can’t tell!” Garrus yelled back as another shot rang out this one striking EDI in the shoulder.

“Buck! Shepard we need to get out of here now!” Ash yelled, suddenly they were enveloped in a strong purple light and they heard another bullet bounce harmlessly off of the dome.

“Commander we need to get your crew members to the hospital as soon as possible I don’t know how long they can survive otherwise!” Twilight yelled at him while pouring much of her concentration into the barrier holding stable above their heads. Shepard saw the pony in the leather jacket racing towards a building to the east nimbly avoiding the other ponies in the street and incoming bullets. Whishing for an application of medigel and a good assault rifle Shepard looked around for another way to take the fight to the enemy, unfortunately he could find none.

“Ok Garrus grab Liara, Ash grab EDI we make a Beeline for the hospital the as soon as Twilight gives us the signal!”

“The hospital is one street over on the left if we move fast I can keep this magic barrier up long enough for us to reach it without being exposed to too much fire, dear Celestia why is it always us !” Twilight yelled back her voice now frantic as several more bullets bounced off of her shield.

“Alright yall, ya, heard the lady let’s get this show on ther road!” AJ yelled as she helped lift Liara onto Garrus’s back.

“Now!” Twilight yelled and their group ran full gallop over as much ground as they possibly could. As they ran down the street, bullets continued to ricochet off of the shield flying into walls and the occasional window. When they finally got into the hospital they were greeted by some very busy looking nurses who were starting to panic, then a Unicorn stallion with a grey mane, and a brown coat, who walked with a limp entered the room and shouted.

“They’re gunshot wounds you idiots, not magical flea bites or now get them up on the operating tables so we can cut the bullets out, unless you want them to bleed to death that is!” After he had said that he walked out of the room followed by a stream of nurses and patients on push carts. As he walked out Shepard caught sight of his flank and saw a walking cane with a red ball balancing on top of it.

“Who was that?” Garrus asked looking impressed at how quickly the stallion had drawn order from the chaos as he carefully unloaded the still breathing Liara onto one of the push carts and into the hooves of a nurse.

“That was the princesses’ private Doctor, Dr. House, he came out of nowhere but from what I’ve heard he’s the best Doctor that Equestria’s ever seen.” Twilight told them, suddenly the doors of the hospital boomed open to reveal Celestia.

“We need to talk.” She said evenly.

While the plot thickens you must liberally add in a small amount of heat to the fire.

Complications

Celestia walked the group into a glass enclosed offices and shut the door behind her, she turned and addressed Shepard directly in an honest and sincere voice.

“I owe you an apology Commander, over the past few weeks my mind hasn’t been my own. It turns out that someone has been attempting to gain control of my sister and I by systematically brainwashing us, needless to say I am suitably angry.”

“That sounds familiar.” Shepard said with a grim smile “I guess that the Reapers are in Equestria.”

“No it wasn’t them. Trust me even if our minds were being destroyed nothing that purely evil could ever break through the barriers that we erected around Equestria; with our neighbors being who they are we have very strong wards in place.”

“Who could possibly be more evil then the Reapers?” Ash asked uncertainly.

“Have you ever heard of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgal, or Slaanesh?” Celestia asked her, Ash shook her head at the alien names. “Then pray that you never have a reason, before them the Reapers are nothing but insignificant pieces of space debris, no we have a problem from within Equestria itself.”

“We’re back to square one then.” Shepard said resignedly, he had been down this path before.

“Not quite, we know that a pony was sighted wearing a leather coat who seemed to be heading towards the building that the sniper was stationed at. Eyewitnesses report that he actually dodged bullets as they were coming at him with little to no effort; he also saved quite a few lives. This pony is obviously after the same ponies that we are so your first step should be to find him and confront him. To aid you on your journey I’ve done a little meddling and was able to create some pony sized versions of all of your old armor and equipment, this is only for your use of course the last thing I need is for my people to be running around with assault rifles.”

“Why do I get the sinking feeling that these are the only things that she can supply us with?” Garrus whispered furtively to Ash, as if on cue Celestia said.

“Unfortunately that is all that I can provide you with, as my Sister is currently recovering from the worse case of mind destruction that I’ve ever seen I must take over her duties and will be too busy to help with much.” Then she turned to Twilight and her friends and said “Twilight Sparkle as the current bearers of the Elements of Harmony I charge you and your friends with the duty of helping Shepard and his group in whatever manner that you see fit. The normal rules and laws of Equestria no longer bind you; I bestow upon you and your friends the title of Equestrian Paladin and everything that comes with that.” Twilight almost fell forward in shock, Fluttershy fainted.

“But there hasn’t been a Paladin since before you took the throne, since the time of Starswirl the Bearded!” Twilight almost yelled in disbelief

“Twilight Sparkle this is an order you are now all Paladins that means that the law is now yours to interpret as you see fit, that means that if you have to kill somepony then you kill somepony if you must steal lie or cheat to complete your mission then you will steal lie or cheat. If you have to choose between your mission and your friends then you choose the mission, you are now the living embodiment of righteous justice deadly justice when and if it comes to it. Am I Understood!?” her voice was serious and deadly a deadly look had come over her face. “Listen to me Twilight I want you and Shepard to find the ones who did this to my citizens and my Sister and I want you to end them, permanently and I want it done in as painful of a way as possible so that they suffer far worse!” Twilight was scarred never before had her mentor ever looked like this.

“Don’t worry Princess we won’t let whoever did this get away with it!” Dash shouted apparently extremely excited about her promotion to Paladin.

“All of your armor and equipment will be sent up as soon as I leave, good luck my little ponies.” Celestia told them before she walked out the door of the office, Fluttershy snapped out of unconsciousness in fright and leaped into the waiting arms of Dash who had been anticipating it for several minutes. As she snuggled into Dash’s arms Fluttershy asked.

“Did what I think just happen just happen?”

“Well Darling are you talking about you confirming what everypony had known about you and Dash for around a year, or the fact that we are now free of any lawful restraints?” Rarity asked her with a small smirk on her face, causing Fluttershy to notice how she was currently wrapping herself around Dash. Fluttershy blushed with enough force for her cheeks to be the same color as her mane.

“The second one.” She said in a small voice, as she slowly unwrapped herself from Dash, who for her part just smirked.

“Can you idiots get out of my office now that your moment of lesbian heartwarming is over?” Dr. House asked somehow managing to appear out of nowhere “It isn’t enough that I have to deal with the nursing staff who act like they’ve never seen a purposely inflicted injury in their meaningless lives, I also have to deal with you crowding my office! Ugh I hate this place everything is to perfect and when something finally goes wrong I’m stuck with naive incompetent morons!” with several mumbled apologies the large group made its way out of the office and into the hall to wait for their new equipment.

When it arrived the former crew of the Normandy found armor that matched their old armor exactly but it was now molded specifically for the bodies of the ponies that they had become. Shepard felt something click in him the moment that the armor locked in place around him, some innate sense of rightness that came from having the armor’s protective weight around his body. Along with the armor he had found a M-27 Scimitar shotgun along with a Carnifex Hand Cannon, after a few moments of learning how to use the weapons in his new body he felt confident that he would be back in his stride shortly. Apparently Celestia was a techno genius because the guns required no ammo and never overheated.

“Alright ponies we have equipment, we have a destination, and we have a score to settle let’s get to work.” They set off out of the hospital resplendent in their armor, at least Shepard and company were. Twilight and her friends looked extremely uncomfortable, except for Dash who looked almost as at ease as Shepard in her sky blue armor. As they walked down the street towards the building where the shots had originated Shepard turned to Twilight and said.

“That was a very good biotic barrier for someone who hasn’t seen any serious combat Twilight; I’m impressed that you were able to keep it up for so long.”

“What are biotics, it was my magic?” She asked him in confusion.

“Magic?”

“Yes the magic comes from a unicorn’s horn and powers spells.”

“Never mind, I’ll learn about it sooner or later, but the sentiment still stands that was a great barrier.” Twilight accepted the compliment easily; she had accepted many such compliments over the years and had eventually grown used to it. After a long elevator ride up to the top floor of the building during which they exchanged small awkward conversations about nothing the elevator arrived on the roof. As they stepped out onto the roof the glare of the setting sun hit Shepard directly in the face yet he could faintly make out the outline of the pony in the leather jacket who stood directly in the path of the sun’s rays. The pony in the jacket inclined its head to Shepard before he did a back-flip off the edge of the roof, Shepard ran to the edge and saw the pony falling fast but his jacket began to slow his decent rippling like a parachute. Before he touched the ground the pony flipped to face forward and spun into a roll which dispersed any excess speed as he rolled to his feet he set off down the street at a canter.

“Well there goes our lead.” Garrus said as he stepped up behind Shepard “By Celestia what I wouldn’t do for some good old turian beer!” Suddenly Pinkie Pie flashed into existence next to Twilight causing several ponies to jump.

“Hi guys I can’t stay long because apparently I’m hard to write so I just wanted to tell you that you should check at the nearest bar for more information. Goodbye I’m off to go and have lunch at the end of the universe with Ford, Arthur, Zaphod, and Trillian.” With that she vanished.

“How does she do that?” Ash asked, in the background the wind whipping across the building was her only answer.

Yes warhammer 40k is one universe over; it’s the only way that I can possibly understand how Equestria can be so perfect. It acts as an opposite to the 40k universe, ok so the theory isn’t perfect but I’m sticking with it

An Old Friend

With no other leads to follow they decided to listen to Pinkie Pie’s strange advice and check at the nearest bar, and of course stop for a quick drink. Despite the strangeness of the day the bar was packed and lively, filled with ponies who were looking for a way to unwind. Shepard Garrus and Ash sauntered up to the bar while Twilight and her friends went and sat at a table.

“Barkeep, can we get a couple of beers please?” Garrus called to the bartender who looked at him questioningly.

“What’s a beer son I’ve been in this business for years and I’ve never heard of one?”

“Then do you have anything with alcohol?” Garrus asked pleadingly.

“Son the only drinks I have are water, milk, lemonade, and cider, pick one.” Garrus turned worriedly to Shepard and with a slight tone of desperation he said.

“Shepard the entire world is sober!” forestalling further protest Shepard placed some of the money that Twilight had given him on the bar and ordered three ciders.

“Look at it this way Garrus, when we’re done saving the planet you can set up your own beer company and make a killing.” Ash told him with a slight smile crossing her face, then she took a cautious sip of her cider. The explosion of flavor in her mouth caught her in surprise and she started to cough.

"You alright Ash?” Shepard asked her

“Yeah I just wasn’t expecting it to taste like that, the stuff is amazing!” she replied, Garrus tapped Shepard on the shoulder and pointed towards the door.

“Speaking of things you weren’t expecting look at that.” In to the bar walked a strange being who looked to be part bird and part lion. It walked deliberately in the direction of Twilight’s table and it looked like it was looking for trouble, Shepard rose and followed slowly behind it trying to look as if he was heading towards the toilets.

“Gilda! What are you doing here?” Dash asked the odd creature as it neared in a shocked voice.

“I’m here to give you a warning Dash.” Gilda replied in a serious and threatening voice.

“And what would that be?” Dash asked her a look of defiance spreading across her face, Shepard took out his Carnifex and pressed it into the back of the griffins head.

“Yes please go on.” He told her his voice very quiet and firm.

“Dash who is the bucking idiot holding a gun to my head?” Gilda asked Dash clearly not impressed by Shepard’s gun.

“Commander Shepard, he will totally kick your flanks Gilda.” Dash told her nonchalantly as she popped a bite of an apple into her mouth. “He claims to from another world and earlier yesterday he intimidated Celestia herself.”

“That’s very, very interesting but it still doesn’t tell me why he is bucking stupid enough to hold a gun to the back of my head.” Gilda said sarcastically.

“Because I’ve been fighting tougher things then you since I was sixteen, plus your legs are trembling.” Shepard told her as holstered his Carnifex “So what’s this warning that you have for Dash and why are you really here?”

“Well let me see, I’m here to tell my undeserving X that there is a griffin ambush waiting just outside the city for your group to leave, and then I got assaulted by some bucker with a pistol.”

“I think she and Jack would have gotten along well, what about you Commander?” Garrus asked Shepard, who motioned for him to go back to the bar.

“A group of griffins are going to ambush us?” Asked Dash

“Yeah apparently somepony really wants all of you dead.” Gilda told Dash before she reached over and grabbed a roll from the table. Then she turned to Fluttershy and asked “So Flutterbut have you been seeing anypony?”

“Actually yes, you may know her, she’s very colorful.” Gilda drew in an angry breath and brought up one of her talons to point at Fluttershy

“Why you little…”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Shepard put in softly from behind her, his Carnifex once again gently caressing the back of her skull. Gilda hissed in frustration before she finally said.

“Fine, I’m done here anyways, this is the last time I watch your back Dash!” with that she stormed out of the bar. That’s when Shepard noticed that everypony in the bar was staring at him silently, he quickly holstered his Carnifex and called for a refill of everyponies’s drink in the bar which lightened the mood significantly.

“Shepard that was completely unnecessary what were you thinking?” Twilight asked him in exasperation.

“I was thinking that Gilda could have ripped your throats open in a fraction of a second.” He replied easily before heading back to the bar.

“What do we do now Twi, Gilda said that they are going to ambush us the second that we leave the city?” Dash asked “I mean I know that we can take them but it could get messy.”

“I don’t know but I’m guessing that Shepard has something planned.” Twilight replied while she racked her brains trying to think of something useful.

***

“How is she?” Celestia asked Dr. House as they looked at Luna through a glass window that ran the length of the wall of her hospital room.

“How do you think she is, if it wasn’t for your assurances to the opposite I would have said that she was brain dead and told you that killing her out of mercy would have been a better use of rescores.” House replied insensitively his brows knitting together in annoyance as he watched a group of nurses who were loudly discussing how terrible of a day they had had. “You really need better nursing staff, all of these act like they’ve never seen a gunshot wound before.

“That’s because until now the only fire arms in Equestria were found in the griffin lands House, I thought we went over this.” Celestia said in exasperation.

“Well whose fault is that?”

“It’s a good thing House; it keeps down on stupid injuries like these accruing every five minutes like they do where you come from.”

“Where I come from people aren’t shocked to discover that people hurt each other on purpose, the ponies here are stupid and naïve.” Celestia sighed she was immensely glad that her dissension to bring House to Equestria had done some good, but he got on her nerves.

“Look I have to go and make sure that the castle hasn’t burned down in my absence try to contain your loathing.” Celestia told him as she walked out of the hospital.

***

“You jumped off of a building?!” K asked T as he told them about his trip.

“Yes, it wasn’t hard; they aren’t as tall here as they were back home.” T said while he polished his pistol.

“Back to the point of the matter, Shepard knows about the fact that our enemies are trying to kill him, and he knows that we’re trying to stop them from doing so.” Said M calmly “We didn’t take into account the mind destruction of Luna, but if our information is accurate that shouldn’t be a factor in two to three weeks. Unfortunately that means that we must drag this out longer, without the support of both princesses we cannot hope to be triumphant against the forces who oppose us.”

“Are you sure that secrecy is still our best option here M? I mean Shepard knows all of us personally so what would be the big deal with him knowing that we exist?” K asked, M sighed, with A away on business she was in charge of controlling K, it wasn’t her favorite job.

“We’ve been over this K if we lose the element of surprise then our entire plan is meaningless, in fact we might as well sign our own death warrant.”

“But this is Shepard!” K exclaimed “He would be able to keep us safe, I know it!” T crossed over to stand behind K and put a hoof on his shoulder

“K when on the hunt you must wait for the prey to present an opportune target to strike at. If you move before then you will accomplish nothing but the escape of the prey, or in our case our untimely second deaths.” K sighed.

“I know I just hate waiting.”

“L what do you have to report?” M asked turning to L who took a moment to gather his thoughts before saying.

“Shepard Commander has made contact with our sympathizer within the griffins, Shepard seems to have insulted her, but the message was received successfully.”

“Good, those griffins shouldn’t present Shepard too much trouble now that he knows that they are coming.” M said with a grateful nod to L “Now I would ask S how his work is coming but I know what the answer would be.”

“Actually have update that needs sharing.” S put in opportunely as he walked into the small meeting room. “Our enemy has become stronger than before in fact much stronger, possibly too strong for our current devise to defeat. It is troubling if our enemy carries on at this rate it may soon be unstoppable.” He said all of this rapidly, his hooves fidgeting as he ran them through his mane.

“Oh Celestia buck me in the face!” M said in exasperation and worry.

“Still think that we should leave Shepard in the dark M?” K asked sarcastically

“Actually that is what I would advise, I cannot calculate the risks of letting Shepard see the true game being played, but it they would be astronomical.” S told K his eyes blinking rapidly. “I’m trying to find a way to subtly make it harder for our enemy to gain more power, or at least cause it to take more time.”

“Thank you S, good work!” M told him appreciatively as he departed. “I think we’ve discussed everything of importance today meeting adjourned.”

sorry for the double header guys i just couldn't wait on my editing guy any longer he doesn't have an email so I have to get all my stuff back in person and with it being the weekend that won’t be till Monday so I said buck it and decided to put them both up at once

Ambush

“You know Shepard just once I would like to go to a romantic place without having to kill something!” Ash yelled over the sound of gunfire.

“Where would the fun be in that Ash?” Shepard asked as he unleashed his Carnifex on the surrounding griffins.

“You should have known this was coming when you agreed to be with him Ash!” Garrus called as he fired off another headshot from his M-97 viper causing another griffin body to fall limply to the ground.

“Can yall stop talking, yall’re distracting ma aim.” AJ yelled as she awkwardly attempted to shoot off another burst from her vindicator assault rifle, and failed miserably.

“Sorry but whenever we stop talking like we’re completely relaxed one of us gets shot, we stopped worrying about it a while ago.” Ash yelled to AJ as she brought her own vindicator to bear.

“Yeah get some!” Dash yelled as she dove in and out of the griffins’ formation, she was a much quicker learner then AJ apparently because two dead griffins fell to the ground moments later.

“You’re all crazy!” Twilight yelled from underneath her magic barrier as bullets bounced off left and right.

“Um, Twi should we help them?” Fluttershy stuttered to her purple friend while she surveyed the scene before her in fright as blood splashed off of the shield.

“Nonsense darling we have no need to grubby our hooves with such things.” Rarity told her before Twilight could answer. A large griffin tried to dive at Shepard only to be stopped by a full burst of shotgun to the face, bloody specks rained down on him but he ignored it, he’d been covered in far more blood then that.

“Back to my point Shepard I would occasionally like to go to a nice restaurant, you know have a nice peaceful dinner followed by some slow easy sex, but no we have to go and kill things first.” Ash called getting back to the earlier conversation.

“Ash you know you love it!” Shepard called back while he smashed his new omni-blade deep into a griffin’s neck before tossing it into a closing group of griffins with him a small bust of biotics.

“Well of course I do Shepard, but I still wouldn’t mind a bit of romance every once and a while.” Ash called as she emptied a round into a circling griffin’s skull.

“Ash I had to talk to you about poetry for around twenty four hours before you would even kiss me, I think I already gave you more than enough romance.”

“What are they yelling about?” Dash asked Garrus, who shrugged and said

“Lovers’ quarrel I wouldn’t worry about it, they do it all the time, oh boy heads up!” he shouted the last part as he knocked the blue pegasus out of the way of a large griffin who was using the conversation as a chance to pounce. Garrus then kicked the griffin in the face before firing a sniper round through its head. As the body blew backwards Garrus chuckled to himself and turned to Dash “You’ve got to enjoy the little things in life Dash, if you learn nothing else then learn that.” He told her before nonchalantly shooting another griffin in the head.

“Is it just me or there like eighty of these guys after us?” Dash yelled as she let off another burst of fire.

“Alright this has gone one long enough!” Twilight yelled before she teleported all of them to stand outside of the house that Pinkie had built, causing Shepard to glance around in confusion before he holstered his Carnifex.

“Ok how did you do that?” he asked Twilight who was leaning against Rarity for support.

“I told you earlier, magic.”

“Alright I have a better question, why didn’t you do it earlier?” Twilight sighed

“I didn’t do it earlier because it makes me really, really tired; now if you’ll please excuse me I have to pass out.” She then fell over into Fluttershy her eyes closed, a tiny snore escaping from her mouth. Suddenly Joker flew out of the house and alighted in front of Shepard, he was wearing yellow armor and had an Avenger strapped to his back.

“Shepard you got armor too, this is so awesome!” Joker said excitedly “Where’s EDI?” He then asked in concern when he noticed that she wasn’t with the group.

“She got shot Jeff, she’s currently in the Canterlot hospital and she should be fine in a week or so.” An angry look came into Joker’s eyes and he said very quietly.

“Who shot her Commander?”

“We don’t know yet, but when we find them you have the first shot.” Tali then ran out of the house and pulled Garrus in a deep bonecrushing hug.

“Hey Tali I’m glad to see you too, but if you don’t mind I kinda prefer my ribs not being cracked.” Garrus got barely got out, Tali blushed and released him.

“Sorry Garrus, I guess I really missed you.” She said apologetically

“It’s alright Tali I missed you too, but I still need to breathe on occasion.” Pinkie Pie jumped out of the ground with a little pop and turned to Shepard.

“Hi Commander Ethan Shepard, Alliance Navy, and first human Specter, I know I decided to just call you Shepard but this is more fun. Anyways I just got back from Will and Alice’s wedding and I thought that it would be nifty if you had a new direction to go in.”

“Thanks, I think” Shepard replied

“Oh think nothing of it, anyways the Author told me to tell you that you should check the Everfree forest. Now I have to get back to that wedding, Halt is hilarious when he drinks and Tug is so witty!” with that she vanished.

“Seriously how does she do that?!” Ash almost yelled

“Don’t question it, she’s Pinkie Pie.” Dash told her while she did a small circle around the house.

“Guys did she say Author?” Garrus asked

“She always says stuff like that darling, just ignore the implications, your life will be much simpler trust me.”

“Whatever you say Rarity you’ve known her longer.” Garrus said with a sigh. They decided to spend the night at the house where they recounted the story of their visit to Canterlot.

***

Discord wipped his hand over his sweaty brow and let out a sigh, how did your mental avatar sweat? He wondered absently while he looked at Luna’s unmoving form lying in the bed in front of him. He had been working on her mind for only a day but it felt as if he had been doing it for a year; her brain was still a cloudy insubstantial mass that could barely put together the effort to keep her body alive. Out the nearby window he caught a glimpse of one of his flying guards; it looked like a giant white airborne jellyfish. When it caught sight of something that wasn’t supposed to be near the castle it let out a ferocious cry and shot an explosive fireball out of its mouth. He wasn’t sure what had inspired him to make them, but they were a very efficient way to deal with the random people who staggered warily into his mind from other dimensions. From behind him he heard the sound of Celestia clearing her throat.

“Tia dear I’m happy to see you again.” Discord told her truthfully, he had gotten bored with no one but Luna to talk to, and talking to someone in a comma makes you wish that you were alone instead.

“Things are getting bad Discord; just today we found the bodies of around fifty griffins outside of Canterlot! They were carrying orders that told them to capture Shepard and kill all of his friends along with Twilight and her group.”

“Because your eyes aren’t red and puffy from crying I’m guessing that they failed miserably.” Discord said with a small smirk, Celestia nodded.

“That pony can fight I’ll give him that, although I worry about his influence on Fluttershy, she must be a sniveling wreck after a fight like that. So how’s my sister’s recovery coming?” she asked him quickly changing topics.

“Well she’s past glue and is almost to the stage of puddy, unfortunately I still have three weeks worth of shaping before she’ll be able to even think of doing of anything…look Tia, I still think that after this you owe me another chance.” Celestia shook her head in frustration.

“No Discord! I told you last time it won’t happen we’ve tried and you’ve failed every test that I set up for you!”

“Fine have it your way Tia, but when you lie alone in your bed at night know that you have only yourself to blame.” He told her before turning back to his work with a huff.

Alright same message about me not having my editor available as last time, sorry for the inconvenience of my bad spelling and or grammar.

Time for some lore

“Twilight I’m sorry but the rest of your friends can’t come with us, they would be giant liabilities.” Shepard told Twilight while he sat in one of her library chairs across from where she stood pacing. “Fluttershy is probably about to go into a shock induced coma, Rarity was useless, and Apple Jack is such a bad shot that she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. The only ones who I would trust my back to are you and Dash, and Dash is too impulsive for my tastes in the first place.” Twilight stopped her pacing and turned to face Shepard directly.

“Shepard this isn’t negotiable, every single one of my friends needs to be with us on this quest, not counting Pinkie because she’ll turn up when we need her, but otherwise we need everypony with us.”

“Why? Why do we need all of your friends? What makes you think that they have the ability to survive what we will be going through? Do you honestly think that Fluttershy has it in her to kill somepony?”

“Shepard, do you know what it means to be called a Paladin?” Twilight asked him softly, Shepard shook his head. “Being a Paladin is an ancient rite that was established long before Celestia took the throne over a thousand years ago…”

“Wait Celestia is over a thousand years old?” Shepard asked interrupting the beginning of Twilight’s narrative.

“Yes Commander, Celestia is well over one thousand years old, now let me talk!” Twilight snapped. “Before Discord came, before Celestia and Luna banished him, before Equestria was even an inkling in the minds of its founders, there were Paladins. The original Paladins were said to be tremendously strong beings that possessed power far greater then Celestia and Luna combined. They were the protectors of the small, the defenders of the weak, and the ones who you turned to when all hope was lost. But as powerful as they were they were still only mortal, eventually they died whether in battle or of age one by one they fell until only six remained. They were the first to have accepted the gift and responsibility of being Paladins the original six beings that had singlehoofedly saved the ponies from the darkened world that surrounded them. But as I said they were still mortal, before they died they left an iota of their power in the command of the current queen so that she could give it to those that she considered worthy. The queen ennobled several replacements and soon they became the new protectors, but with each generation the Paladins became less and less worthy of the names and virtues that they should have held up unquestioningly. Eventually during the days of Celestia’s mother’s time the problem got far too out of hand and the queen of the day was forced to take away their powers, or what remained of them that is. Since then there have been no Paladins in Equestria, Celestia had not seen fit with honoring anypony with the abilities that come with the title. Until now, even as we speak I can feel my body radiating raw magical power, and that scares me Shepard do you know why it scares me?”

“Because, you’re afraid of losing control of it.” She nodded

“Shepard before you came here I was the Element of magic, I could do incredible things that would even make Celestia flinch! Hay, my friends and I defeated two beings that could be classified as GODS! Before my grip on the magic was tenuous but had it in firmly in control except for a few cases when I was under impossible stress, now my grip can barely hold onto all of this power!”

“Then why should I bring any of you along?” Shepard asked “It sounds like you will be unpredictable and unpracticed, which are the worst things to be when you’re on a battlefield.”

“Because Shepard although the Paladins were a force of good they also knew when good alone could not prevail, they knew the power that death holds over ponies was ultimately the way to end a problem once and for all! That knowledge is coursing through each one of my friends and me. Even Fluttershy is slowly being able to rationalize killing which is why she didn’t faint during the fight, why she hasn’t cried a tear over the bodies of the dead griffins, and why she will ultimately be useful during this quest of ours!” Shepard was silent for a long time while he silently drank a cup of tea that Spike had given him when he had first entered the library. Eventually the silence became awkward and Twilight went around the room collecting books and meticulously returning them to their spots on the shelves.

“Twilight, how powerful are you?” Shepard asked finally asked her breaking the silence.

“If I wanted to I could destroy all of Canterlot with a misplaced spell, only Celestia and Luna could stop me and it would be a close fight.” Her voice was far away as if imagining the conflict.

“And each one of your friends is just as powerful?”

“In their own ways I’m sure, but I have the easiest power to channel and the most experience using it although in a far more minor form, why?”

“Because I have no idea what we’re truly up against and I like to know my allies abilities before I’m stuck in a position that could get myself or one of my friends killed or worse. I also like to know how to stop one of my allies should they turn on me.” Shepard told her a hard edge coloring his voice.

“Thank you for the sentiment Shepard, now you should probably head home before Ash get’s worried that you’ve been away to long and decides that I’m attempting to seduce you.” Shepard bade her goodbye and walked down the path to the house; he heard a noise off to the side and carefully moved his hoof to hover over his Carnifex. To his surprise from the darkness emerged Fluttershy, her face was harder than he had ever seen it and the look in her eyes told him that she was angry.

“Where are they Shepard? Where are the ones who did it!” she said her voice was quiet but an undercurrent of malice ran through it.

“Who Fluttershy, who are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for the buckers who killed my animals Shepard, only Angel is still clinging to life; all the others were dead when I returned home! They were butchered Shepard their bodies violated and strewn about my house like so many dead leaves after the first winds of winter sweep through the fall trees!”

“What! How could this happen?” Shepard hadn’t known Fluttershy long but from his time around her he had discovered that she had a great many pets whom she cared about almost as much as her pony friends.

“All I know is that they were covered in sword marks, I will find who did this Shepard and I will end them.” This was insanely creepy for Shepard to see, but he managed to go over to Fluttershy and give her a comforting hug, which she returned as shudders ran through her body.

“Look Fluttershy we will find whoever did this, but I need to get back to Ash. You should go talk to Twilight about this she’ll know just what to do.” Fluttershy eventually stopped shuddering and nodded before she set off towards Twilight’s house. As he climbed into bed next to Ash his mind was still running through what Twilight had told him, and what had happened to Fluttershy. Whoever’s responsible for this is going to pay dearly for this! He swore to himself as sleep overtook him.

A tale of the Paladins

The three looked over the battle field before them, Anu their leader sighed. What a bloody mess, he thought to himself while he gazed down at the enemy who were fast approaching their position. Anu’s body was covered in sleek black fur that covered his large muscular body, atop his head sat a large sharp horn whose point looked as if it would rend the heavens. Off to his right his second in command Shalkan shook his head in impatience while the enemy marched closer and closer, their hoofbeats getting louder and louder. Shalkan’s fur was red with small splotches of white showing through every now and then; a tall horn emerged from his brow. Hovering to his left Shika flew in tiny circles and exercised her long angelic wings; her coat was storm cloud grey while her mane flowed about her in an odd rainbow of colors. Spread out before them was the host of the warlord who wished to challenge their queen for the rulership of their land, they wouldn’t allow it though as the warlord would soon discover.

“So this is the best that that scum Darno could summon to help him conquer us?” Shika asked in surprise “I expected more from the pony who claimed that he would one day rule the world.”

“It is odd, he’s either overconfident, or he thinks he can trick us into a trap.” Shalkan mused to himself while he surveyed the enemy; there were only a few hundred thousand, nothing that one Paladin couldn’t handle let alone three.

“There is the possibility that he’s forgotten our strength, after all we haven’t been in this hemisphere in around a decade.” Anu put in as the first of the arrows rained down on their position, all of which were emulated by his spell shield.

“Well then we should remind them!” Shika said before she flew out of the shield nimbly dogging arrows and flapped her wings in the general direction of the enemy army. Immediately incredibly strong winds ripped through the enemy host tearing large chunks in it as the unfortunate ponies were sent flying off of the cliff face and down onto the serrated edged rocks below. “First blood by the way.” She said casually.

“Really we didn’t notice?” Shalkan said dryly before he summoned a large bolt of lightning and sent it crisscrossing through the ponies arrayed against them, the smell of cooking flesh emerged from the host. “Anypony hungry?” he asked with a smirk on his face. Anu rolled his eyes; his second in command’s sense of humor mystified him. Suddenly the oncoming host stopped and one pony stepped out of it, in his hoofs was a document on well pressed scroll.

“Boss are we observing the no shooting the messenger practice that has developed in this corner of the world?” Shika asked Anu

“First we hear what he has to say, if we don’t like it I send him and fifty others flying into the moon.” Anu replied with no hint of malice in his voice, it was just a fact.

“You are being given one chance by Supreme Emperor Darno to surrender, otherwise we shall skin you, mount you on our walls and rape your que..” he was interrupted in the middle of his speech which was about to become purely vulgar by Anu casually throwing him and two hundred of his fellows into the air at a blistering pace, where they eventually impacted on the moon throwing up large clouds of dust in all directions. Thousands of years latter Luna would come across their bleached bones and wonder how they had gotten there in the first place, but back to the battle.

“Two hundred was a little overkill Anu, somepony in the future might wonder how two hundred dead bodies made their way to the moon.” Shalkan said, Shika snorted with laughter and a slight smile touched Anu’s lips. Ignoring the fate that had befallen their fellows the enemy charged the Paladins' position in a dead out assault. Shika shouted a cry of excitement and spiraled out of the air to land among a large group of them, her landing sent many spinning off to the side as they were carried away by the waves of air, and those were the lucky ones. “Should we join her?” Shalkan asked Anu who sent his hoof stabbing into the ground sending out a massive wall of dirt and stone which collided with the enemy with the force of a tsunami before resetting itself back where it started.

“Now we can join her.” Anu told his friend as he leapt into the bloody fray, he stabbed out with his horn eviscerating several enemies where they stood. Shalkan joined him and lashed out with his back hooves catching a sowrdspony in the chest breaking several ribs as his hooves broke the skin, he then threw the body into another who was trying to sneak up on him from the left. Anu looked up to find Shika flying above them being chased by several pegasi who thought that they had her on the run, the feeling lasted until she sucked the air out of their lungs with a contemptuous breath. She then sent them flying into the enemy forces with the speed of shooting stars creating large scars in their ranks as they pressed eagerly for their chance to fight the Paladins.

Anu was beginning to relax, he’d been to tense lately and it felt good to do some honest work in the name of his queen. He dodged left of an incoming spear shaft before he sent out a blistering wave of heat that melted the enemy pony in a matter of seconds. Shalkan had clothed himself in a bolt of lightning and was currently running amok through the enemy ranks killing hundreds as his coat lashed out striking all before him. Suddenly Anu turned his head and looked to the back of the army, things were about to get really interesting. Standing in the back row was a lone Zebra raised his hooves above his head and started to chant softly to himself. Anu felt his energy being drained, but he didn’t worry, he had a trick up his sleeve.

“Come to mama you zebra mother bucker!” yelled his mate as she crashed down on the enemy shaman in a thunderous landing that shot earth in all directions. Standing in the middle of it was a beautiful orange pegasus whose wings sparkled iridescently in the bright sunlight, despite the blood now covering her body she still looked adorable to Anu. The enemy army gave out a shout of despair but they still carried on their pointless assault. “Did I miss much dear?” his mate Dalia asked as she alighted gently next to him and shot out a blast of icy wind from beneath her wings freezing several enemies where they stood.

“Oh not too much, Shika claimed first blood.”

“She always does.” Dalia replied while she knocked back another ten enemy ponies who had attempted to flank her. Anu nodded absently before shooting out another wave of earth followed by a wave of heat. Shalkan came back and dispelled his coat of electricity in a loud explosion of energy that traveled out forty feet.

“Did you have to do that? Now we have to move to them.” Anu asked his second, who smiled almost embarrassedly.

“Sorry that one got out of hand, I only meant for it to kill a few dozen not a few hundred.” Dalia snorted, and Anu just sighed.

***

In his war chair sitting at the very edge of his lines Darno sat and watched as his carefully constructed plan worked its magic, the fools were doing just what he’d wanted them to. He signaled to his zebra shaman to begin to chant the words of the ancient spell that he had discovered in an ancient castle that was created to destroy the creatures set against him. Seconds later the spell began to take effect, he could see the Paladins begin to slow, then his shaman exploded under an intense force as his body was pressed into the ground at an impossible speed.

***

Hours later the battle had been won by the Paladins. Who were still ready to take on more enemies if the enemy could provide them, much to their disappointment the enemy could not.

Sorry for the filler guys but I thought that you should know what the Paladins were like, and keep in mind, this is after around ten generations of Paladins. The original were much, much stronger

A walk through the forest

Twilight shut the book with a weary sigh, it was a good tale but it didn’t tell her anything about what it meant to actually be a Paladin. Fluttershy had passed through and told Twilight what had happened to her animals before she left the house and flew towards Dash’s house muttering something about ‘stress releasing exercises’ which worried Twilight greatly. Under any other circumstance Fluttershy would have been crying for weeks, now she just seemed angry, angrier then she had ever been before.

“Twilight what are we going to do?” Spike asked her as he put the book back on the shelf for her.

“I guess tomorrow we’ll go to Everfree and look for clues, other than that I doubt that there is much that we can do Spike. Like it or not Celestia chose my friends and I to be her Paladins so I guess I’ll adapt, luckily I’m not nearly as powerful as the ones in that book are.”

“I can see how that would be problematic.” Spike said “But I think you need to sleep Twilight, whatever happens tomorrow I know you’ll do better with a half a night’s sleep then with no sleep.”

***

“I didn’t hear you come in last night Ethan.” Ash said as she yawned and stretched

“Sorry Ash I was up late last night talking to Twilight, and then I ran into Fluttershy on the way home.” She fixed him with a hard stare for a few seconds which he met unwaveringly, then she smiled and laughed to herself.

“I’m not sure why I worry Ethan, you spent a year and a half thinking that I hated you and you never touched another mare.” As they descended the stairs they found a very different group of ponies assembled in the main room. Twilight stood in the center of the group her eyes had small bags hanging from them but otherwise she appeared focused and ready. Dash’s mane was disheveled and slightly out of place, but that was all, she had a sly smile on her face as she viewed the surrounding ponies. Fluttershy’s mane was in a similar state of disrepair, but her eyes were slightly haunted. Apple Jack looked almost no different from the day before but she seemed to have grown a little bigger. Rarity had managed to change the standard issue armor into a work of beauty, whether it would hold up or not was another matter. Her mane was also streaked with shifting red hued highlights.

Shepard’s crew looked much the same except Joker who looked like he was ready to rip somepony’s head off. Tali and Garrus were once again sitting next to each other on a couch, while James stood leaning against one of the walls.

“Alright Commander we’re all here what now, when do we kill the buckers that shot my EDI!” Joker said his face intense with emotion, Shepard sighed this was going to be rough.

“You aren’t coming Joker.” Shepard told him evenly in a voice that brokered no argument.

“But Commander you promised!” Joker cried in outrage.

“Joker you are in no mental emotional condition to go into the field, hay I wouldn’t even let you pilot the Normandy under these conditions. Besides when was the last time you actually held a gun?”

“But Shepard they shot EDI!”

“And they shot Liara; look Joker you aren’t coming…” Shepard turned to James “…and if he tries to follow us I give you permission to knock him out James.” James smiled, and then he thought about it.

“Wait Commander I can’t come either?” Shepard shook his head.

“Sorry James but I need someone I can trust to hold down the fort, and someone needs to keep Joker from flying off into the forest screaming for blood like an idiot.” James sighed but went over to the door and stood there. “Tali, Garrus, and Ash you’re all with me.” They nodded and Tali started rapidly moving her hooves around on her omni tool. “Twilight I assume you developed a plan about searching the forest?” Shepard asked her receiving an affirmative nod

“Yes my first thought is that the best place to start with would be Zecora’s hut, she lives in the forest and would be the first one to notice anything strange.” Twilight replied, a spark had come into her eyes, as if readying herself for whatever conflicts awaited them in the forest. Once they began their walk through the forest Shepard noticed how sinister it was, something about it just clashed with the rest of Equestria that he’d seen.

“Twilight why does it feel so different here?” he asked her as he cocked his head to hear an odd sound off in the distance.

“This is the Everfree forest Shepard; ponies can’t control the weather here like we can everywhere else in Equestria, it is for lack of a better expression…free.”

“Wait you control the weather here?” Tali asked in shock.

“Yes a long time ago there was a big explosion of magic that stopped nature, ever since then the ponies of Equestria have been tasked with controlling among other things, precipitation, and the seasons themselves.”

“So why is this place 'free'?” Tali asked

“We honestly don’t know, Celestia might but she’s never told me” the group lapsed into silence as they all concentrated on the forest around them. Out of the corner of his eye Shepard saw a vaguely catlike beast with a prickly tail.

“Should we be worried about that cat over there?” Shepard asked Twilight, to his surprise Fluttershy answered.

“Hardly Commander, that’s just a manticore, nothing for someponies as well armed as we are to worry about.” Her voice was calm, but it had gained a condescending edge to it that seemed completely out of character for her, apparently Shepard wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“Are you ok Flutter?” Dash asked her, while flying slowly above her.

“Not really, no I’m not! All of my animal friends were murdered, and I can’t bring myself to cry over their deaths. Not even a tear has escaped my eyes since I became a Paladin, and I for some reason can’t feel guilty about it!” she almost shouted disturbing several birds nesting nearby. Dash landed next to her and placed her foreleg around Fluttershy and walked in silence next to her. After what felt like hours they arrived at a small wooden hut that stood in an isolated clearing, to their surprise it was burning.

Sorry for the shortness and the slowness of this chapter, the next one will be suitably actiony

Surprise

Standing around the body of an unconscious or dead zebra were a group of griffins, they were wearing suites of odd black armor that Shepard hadn’t seen before. He quietly motioned for Garrus to take up a sniping position and pointed at the Griffin who appeared to be the leader, Garrus nodded in acknowledgement. Before he could make any further directions one of the griffins looked up from the zebra and noticed them, Garrus shot the leader causing his head to explode in a ball of blood and feathers just as the one who had noticed them shrieked an alarm. Shepard drew his Carnifex from its holster and the others followed suit, except Fluttershy who stood there glaring at the enemy. The griffins who were unfortunate enough to be caught in her gaze stood stock still while their legs twitched and their bodies shivered, hopelessly trying to escape the small yellow pegasus’s gaze. The griffins who had not been caught in Fluttershy’s stare had reached for their guns and opened fire, causing Twilight to throw up a
quick barrier over top of their position catching all the incoming fire.

“Twilight can you make it so that we can fire out of this thing?” Shepard called to the purple pony.

“No, I don’t have enough experience with battle magic to do anything like that, although I can teleport us to a better position if you want.” Twilight said, then she shuddered as a large shell bounced off of her shield. “You may want to specify a destination soon!” Shepard quickly scanned the area and noticed a large group of logs that seemed to be set up perfectly to use as cover.

“Put us behind those logs over there” Shepard told her and nodded in the direction of the logs, with a flash of magic Shepard and company found themselves behind the wooden barricades.

“Am I the only one who always wonders why there are convenient pieces of cover placed everywhere we go?” Tali yelled as she unloaded her M-9 Tempest into the chest of an enemy griffin, who staggered backwards clutching at his heavily bleeding chest.

“Are you really going to start questioning the universe now Tali, if you remember we’re ponies now?!” Ash yelled as she sprang up from under cover to throw a grenade which took out several griffins.

“Ash be careful with those grenades we still have to worry about that zebra!” Shepard yelled before sending several griffins flying into the air with a biotic shockwave. Dash was for some reason just leaning against a log with a faraway look in her eyes, it was almost like she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.

***

Dash found herself flying in a strange place surrounded by huge clouds that towered into the sky. The sun shone brilliantly from all directions, reflecting through the bodies of the clouds around her in myriad multi spectrum rays. Dash briefly considered that she was dead, but threw away the notion when she realized that she had felt no pain in the transition, nor did she remember any real injury.

“Nice place isn’t it?” Asked a large grey pegasus who had approached Dash without her noticing. The mare’s mane was almost the same coloration as Dash’s but it seemed more iridescent and it was in constant motion.

“Where am I, who are you?” Dash asked the majestic mare

“You’re technically leaning behind a log outside of enemy fire, but I’m guessing you mean where are you mentally. To put it simply this is a small corner of your subconscious where thanks to your new Paladinship I can enter and speak with you. I’m Shika by the way, and if you want to be specific I’m your times around four thousand times great grandmother.” Dash stared at Shika for a few moments before she burst into ruckus laughter.

“Oh Celestia I’ve finally gone completely insane, which is weird because I always guessed that it would be Twilight.” She said between ragged breaths. Shika sighed Shalkan had told her that this would happen but she hadn’t cared.

“You realize that the longer you laugh the higher chance of a bullet hitting you in the forehead is right?” Shika asked Dash her tone serious yet amused, that sobered Dash up immediately.

“Let’s go under the assumption that I believe you, who are you?”

“Like I said I’m your really great grandmother, who also happened to serve with what was possibly the second greatest squad of Paladins to grace the land that you now call Equestria in history.” Shika said proudly, but not boastfully just self-confidently, Dash found that she was starting to like this mare.

“But how are you appearing to me?”

“Well Paladinship isn’t really genetic, but those who serve are given the honor of assisting our ancestors who become Paladins, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to try this.” Dash nodded to herself, it made a kind of sense she supposed, but she would have to run it by Twilight for confirmation.

“So how’s heaven?” Dash asked Shika offhandedly, Shika let out an exasperated sigh

“Terrible, the food sucks, the lines extremely long, and to top it off they don’t let you do much. That’s why I jumped with joy when you became a Paladin; at last I would be able to get out of the place, if only for a while.”

“But if heaven sucks then why should I strive to go there?”

“Because if heaven sucks then the other place must be absolutely horrible, the only thing that it has on us is that both its legal team and its musicians are better.”

“So can you instruct me on how to use my Paladin abilities?” Dash asked her much greater grandmother.

“Sadly not yet, your abilities haven’t developed to the point that I could be helpful.” Shika sounded both sad and frustrated.

“Then why couldn’t we have had this conversation when griffins aren’t trying to kill me!” Dash yelled in annoyance.

“Because I just now got permission from higher up, also it’s more fun this way.”

***

“Dash can you hear me!” Twilight yelled shaking her friend with her hooves, when Dash began to groan and look around sluggishly Twilight let out a sigh of relief before she turned back to the ongoing battle. From behind cover their force had gone from being adapt to being true masters of warfare. Shepard would launch out a shockwave of magic, which would interrupt the griffins who were flying around above them causing them to stutter mid flap and be shot by Garrus. Tali and AJ worked quickly with their Scimitar shotguns taking out the targets that Fluttershy had caught in her stare which had become far more powerful as the battle raged on around her. Twilight sent a fire ball spiraling out of her horn which caught a griffin in the chest causing him to burst into purple flames. He tried desperately to put out the magic fire that was consuming his flesh but he could not. The incoming breeze brought the sickly smell of burning flesh to Twilight’s nose which wrinkled in disgust.

“What did I miss Twilight?” Dash called as she picked up her vindicator and rushed over to lean next to Twilight behind the logs.

“Not much, but we could use you to break up their formations.” Shepard called as unleashed yet another headshot from his Carnifex.

“On it!” Dash called as she leapt into the air and headed towards the enemy positions.

“Twilight darling do you think you could offer more some assistance over here, I can’t take on all of these brutish louts by myself.” Rarity called to Twilight as she sent out magic attack after magic attack, none of which seemed to do much good. Before Twilight could react however Ash had already covered the distance between the two and smashed the butt of her rifle into a griffins head before swiveling and unleashing a large stream of bullets into the enemy surrounding Rarity. Before Twilight knew what had happened the enemy forces had been reduced down to one griffin who had decided that the best course of action was to take Zecora hostage.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill her!” the griffin squawked in fright, the gun shaking in his talons.

“You may have a hard time upholding that bargain bird.” Zecora told the griffin as she slipped out of his grip and proceeded to break his neck with a quick snap. “Twilight and friends, to what do I owe this lovely visit?” Zecora asked Twilight “and who are these others?”

AN
And to answer the obvious question, no none of the other Mane six have Paladin ancestry

Answers and Annoyance

Twilight looked at her friend in shock. She hadn’t been aware that Zecora had a violent bone in her body, let alone the skill to so coldly dispatch the griffin that lay dead at her feet.

“Ze…Zecora, ho, how did you do that?” Twilight stuttered Zecora blinked and turned back to look at the body lying prostrate on the ground.

“In Zebra lands you learn to fight when you are young, if it is old you wish to become.” The zebra told her shrugging her shoulders. “I learned how to fight from my mother, and used my skills to protect my brothers.”

“But Zecora you just snapped a griffin’s neck with your bare hooves, that shouldn’t be possible!”

“Twilight I believe I have information that you desire, information about something very dire.” That got Twilight’s attention.

“Wait you know something about the ponies that we’re after?” she asked excitement creeping into her voice.

“Sadly I doubt that it is enough, but it sure to spread light and make the quest less rough.” Zecora told the group apologetically

“That’s ok Miss, we’ll take what we can get.” Shepard told her, Zecora turned to eye Shepard

“Ah so here at last is the stallion so central, to destroying the enemy’s plans potential.” Garrus leaned over to Tali and whispered.

“I wonder whether she’s trying to annoy us or if that’s really how she talks.” Zecora turned back to Twilight.

“From my forays through the enemy intelligence, I have discerned a shocking amount of negligence. They seem to think that they have you outsmarted, but you are more powerful than they could have predicted.”

“Can you tell us who is the leader of this enemy is?” Shepard asked Zecora, who shook her head.

“All I have heard of are shadows, who never stray in front of windows.” Shepard and Twilight sighed in unison, this mystery just kept on getting deeper.

“I thought you said that you had something that we needed to know or the consequences could be dire!” Twilight told Zecora, her mind was at its wits end with all these conspiracies.

“I did discover a plan, that if executed would mean the end of all that we hold Equestrian” Zecora said, Twilight motioned for her to go on. “They plan on assassinating Celestia herself, by dawn of the day after tomorrow they say the royal mare will be dead and the enemy will take the field himself.” Twilight stood stock still in amazement her jaw hanging open.

“Zecora why didn’t you tell us in the first place!” she almost yelled

“Because each rhyme, must be delivered at just the right time.” Zecora said before she walked back into the rubble of her house, she reemerged moments later with a small sack which she tossed to Twilight. “These potions will help you on your quest, do your best.” With that she vanished into the forest leaving ten confused ponies in her wake.

“Well that was odd…” Garrus said arching an eyebrow before he continued “…Shepard when did we become so good at going in circles?

***

Celestia awoke her head throbbing painfully; she looked around her eyes blurry with sleep and rubbed some of the collected sand from her eyes. She then went about the job of raising the sun although anypony who was watching would have noticed a distinct falter as she momentarily lost control of the giant orb of hot gasses and explosions. When her royal duty was done she went over and sat on her bead holding her hooves to her temples trying to remember what had happened last night. She had gone to investigate how Discord was progressing with the fixing of Luna’s mind, he had attempted to weasel back into her heart, there had been an argument, and the last thing that she had a clear recollection of was Discord handing her what appeared to be a glass of wine in truce.

“Discord what did you do to me!” She shouted in her mind, she was met by chuckling laughter. Grinding her teeth Celestia leapt into his mind with thoughtless abandon and found herself in the room where Luna’s mental form lay sleeping peacefully. Discord stood beside Luna manipulating small nodes of light that scattered hither and yon around Luna’s head. When she entered he turned and fixed her with a wide grin while keeping his hands on the lights.

“So how are we this lovely day my dear Tia?” he asked her in the voice that he knew made her want to magically strangle him.

“WHAT, DID, YOU, DO, TO, ME!” she shouted at him making full use of her royal Canterlot voice, in response he held a finger to his lips and pointed at her sister.

“Try not to wake her up Tia dear, I would have to start all over.” In a much softer voice Celestia asked the same question. “Honestly Tia I didn’t do anything, you’re the one who drank ten bottles of some of my best wine, really you should be apologizing to me.”

“I drank ten bottles worth of draconequus wine by myself?” Celestia asked in wonder, she had never really been a heavy drinker.

“Well I helped a small amount, but for the most part you tried to drain my cellars dry. Then again I don’t really mind because when you’re drunk out of your mind you’re much more fun.” He told her his voice sounded sincere, or at least as sincere as a god of chaos could sound.

“But then why do I still feel hungover, if I only drank it here then the affects should have dissipated once I left?”

“Tia that was authentic draconequus wine from when I ruled the world, I brought it in with me when you originally sentenced me to the life of an inanimate statue. Thanks to my peoples’ magic it had remained real even inside the place that is technically imaginary so you really got completely shi…"

“Discord you can’t abuse your position as a god to get around the censor!” Celestia told him in mock outrage.

“Oh fine, I still don’t understand why you instated that thing anyways nothing but trouble.”

“If I remember correctly you did it Discord, you wanted to see everyponies’ reaction when the normal swearwords were replaced with arbitrary words that you thought would be funny.” Celestia said pointedly

“Oh that’s right I remember now, it was still worth it to see their mouths drop in amazement and annoyance when they first tried to curse.” Her questions satisfied Celestia turned to leave, but Discord stopped her right before she left, stretching his neck unnaturally he put his face in front of hers and said quietly. “Be careful Tia, I sense trouble brewing and I don’t like it.” Slightly unsettled by his change of attitude Celestia forced herself back into her body where it was greeted happily by the hangover.

“This is going to be a long day.” She muttered to herself then she winced at the sound of her voice as she prepared for her royal duties, while she was at it she told one of the guards stationed at her door to get her a large glass of orange juice.

AN
Things are finally going to pick up and there will be actual plot development, I’m sick so I should be able to spare enough time to make my chapters much longer

Calm before the storm

They made good time, arriving in Canterlot the next morning and immediately headed towards the castle. They came upon Celestia in the large dining room carefully sipping what appeared to be her ninth glass of orange juice, her eyes appeared slightly bloodshot and her mane was in a state of disarray. When she saw them come in she looked up and smiled brightly.

“Princess we have terrible news!” Twilight shouted causing Celestia to wince visibly. “What’s wrong Princess, are you hurt?” Twilight asked her voice tight with concern.

“Twilight she’s hungover.” Shepard input softly before Celestia decided to smash Twilight into the ceiling for being so loud.

“Thank you Commander, He’s right Twilight I just had a little too much to drink last night so please keep it down. Now what’s this terrible news that is concerning you?” Celestia asked her star student softly.

Garrus leaned over to Tali and whispered “Oh she can get drunk but I can’t?” Tali elbowed him; she wanted to hear the conversation.

“We uncovered that the people who hurt Luna and attacked Shepard earlier are planning to assassinate you by dawn tomorrow!” Twilight told her teacher quietly but with great urgency, Celestia’s face grew worried.

“This is grave news Twilight, what do you know about the attempt?” Celestia asked softly

“Next to nothing, all we really know is that they plan on you dying sometime before tomorrow.” Twilight told her sadly.

“Well that’s a lot to go on; I would suggest speaking with my lead guard, Captain Arsenal.” Celestia told her student and motioned an older brown coated stallion over to the table, Shepard didn’t know why but he liked the pony immediately. While Twilight continued to talk to Celestia Arsenal turned to Shepard and in a voice that sounded strikingly like Aderson’s asked.

“So what’s this about an assignation attempt son?” Shepard couldn’t talk; the stallion sounded so much like Anderson that his mouth just wouldn’t work. “What’s the matter son, cat got your tongue?” Shepard shook his head quickly to clear it before he said

“Sorry sir your voice reminded me of an old friend’s.”

“That’s fine I get that occasionally, so about the assassination?”

“Like Twilight said we don’t know anything besides the fact that they want her dead by dawn tomorrow.”

“Hmm, well I wish you could offer more information. That’s not a lot to go on, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” Arsenal told him with a shrug “If nothing else we’ll definitely add more guards to the rotation and be on watch for suspicious activity.” Shepard nodded and turned back to his group who were hungrily eating food that Celestia had ordered be brought for them.

“So Commander how has Equestria treated you since we last talked?” Celestia asked him quietly.

“I can’t say that I don’t like it Ma’am. But I’m concerned about the large number of well armed griffins that I keep running into, and killing.” Shepard replied with a shrug and a smile.

“Yes I’ve looked into that, private mercenaries apparently, however I couldn’t discover who hired them but I’m still looking into the matter. Now on to the matter of my approaching assassination, what did you and Arsenal decide on?” she asked him

“He’s decided to double your guards and put them on watch for suspicious activity.” Shepard told her.

“I’m guessing that you believe that more should be done, don’t you Commander?” Celestia asked him dryly

“How did you know?” Shepard asked wryly, Celestia chuckled softly

“When you’re over a thousand years old you learn to pick up on vocal quos and body langue Commander.” Celestia smiled at him with her violet eyes before she asked “What do you propose that I do in addition to doubling my guard?”

“Well there are two options that you could take really, you could either flee and or hide somewhere completely safe, but I’m guessing that that isn’t your style. The other option is to trick them into making the first move and then trapping them within a room or building so that we can take them down slowly and safely.”

“You seem to know a lot about assassination Commander.” Celestia told him raising her eyebrows.

“Well I learned from the best, and I wish I had him with me here today.” Shepard replied sadly while he thought of the heroic drell who had slowly died of an incurable disease. Celestia graced him with a pitying glance and said.

“I wish I could have met him, anyone who gains the respect of a stallion like yourself must have been truly great.”

“He was…he’s one of the people that I miss the most, him, Mordin, and all the rest.”

“Mordin?” Celestia asked

“A great doctor and scientist, he was just as likely to shoot you then he was to heal you, but he had a heart of gold.” Shepard said, he had no idea where this melancholy mood had come from but he was suddenly aware of how just many friends he had lost up to this point.

“Trust me I know how you feel Commander, after over a thousand years I’ve lost my fair share of good friends.” Celestia told him, a note of great sadness colored her voice. “But now isn’t the time to be distracted by the past, what’s your plan?” Her voice was tempered with iron and it snapped Shepard out of his mood.

“We act as though we didn’t learn anything, we mope around the castle all day with defeated expressions on our faces, and with any luck the enemy will buy it. My squad will be placed around you in strategic positions all day waiting for the enemy to appear. When he or they do, we jump them and haul them off for questioning before we shoot them in the back of the head and move onto the leader.” That caused Celestia to raise her eyebrows even higher, up to this point everything that Shepard had done seemed to indicate that he was a merciful paragon of virtue even for a pony, but this mood that he was in seemed to be upsetting something inside him.

“I like your plan Shepard, but I have to ask, is something wrong you seem very angry?”

“I guess you hadn’t heard yet, someone with a sword killed all of Flutter’s animals it’s caused her to be almost indifferent to the death of those around her. The loss of that innocence makes me angry, very angry.” He said it quietly, but his eyes had hardened and there was a bright fire burning behind them. Celestia gasped in shock, come to think of it Flutter did seem to be acting strangely today, she thought to herself.

“Well Commander we cannot stand for this, that makes two ponies that I deeply care about that were about hurt by these evil ponies, for this they will pay mark my words!” Even though she said it quietly there was unmistakable menace in her voice. Shepard smiled at her before he went to get a muffin to eat, as he walked away Twilight walked up to her teacher.

“That sounded bad Princess, is there anything you need?” Celestia sighed inwardly, Twilight would always be Twilight.

“No my little pony there isn’t, except for maybe another glass of orange juice and for this dreadful business to be concluded.” Celestia told her star pupil with a far off look on her face, she wasn’t the only one. Dash also had a far off look on her face, but that was more to do with the fact that she was currently having a conversation with a dead mare inside her head then because she was thinking about all the star students she had watched die over the years.

***

“I still say that you should be able to teach me something!” Dash yelled at Shika as they flew through the clouds of her mind.

“I told you already Dash your powers aren’t developed, if I tried to teach you anything now it would simply take longer before you could use them correctly!” Shika told her calmly, but she was obviously growing tired of Dash’s yelling.

“But why does it work that way?” Dash asked her in annoyance

“Well what would have happened if you had tried to fly before your wings were ready to carry you?” Shika asked Dash.

“I don’t know, I guess that I would probably have died, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“If flying before you’re ready can kill you, what do you think wielding immense cosmic powers would do to you?” Dash fell silent at that as she thought over what Shika had to say.

“I probably shouldn’t bug you about this anymore should I?”

“That would probably be best Dash.”

***

“Dashie are you ok?” Flutter asked her mare-friend gently nudging her shoulder; Dash shook her head for a minute to clear it of the beautiful clouds before she looked over to Fluttershy.

“I’m fine Flutter; I was just talking to the dead mare who’s decided to live in my head for a while.” Instead of cringing in horror Flutter just nodded and picked up another muffin. Meanwhile Garrus and Tali were having a discussion about drinking.

“I still can’t believe that you risked dying just to get a drink Tali, especially using a straw!” Garrus told Tali in worried annoyance.

“Not a straw, an Emergency Induction Port, there’s a big difference when it comes to these things that I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Tali said hotly, Garrus sighed and facehoofed while simultaneously wondering how his forelegs managed to bend in that direction.

“Whatever you call it, it was still extremely dangerous for you to do.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore Garrus, I’m out of the suit.” Tali said softly her voice tapering off into silence as she thought about how most of her life her senses had been censored by the suit.

“Rare what in tarnation do you expect to accomplish by doing this?” Applejack asked her friend as Rare tried again and again to cast a spell on her armor.

“What I expect to do darling is cast a powerful shield spell on this armor, but for some reason it just won’t stick.” Before any of the conversations could go any farther Princess Celestia rose to her hooves and said.

“I’m going to visit my sister in the hospital, and as I understand it you have two friends staying there as well so it won’t arouse any suspicion if you accompany me.” She then began to walk out of the dining room Shepard and Twilight followed directly behind her, followed by the rest of their large group.

***

When they arrived at EDI and Liara’s room they were surprised to discover both James and Joker there.

“That was a…” EDI was saying as they entered the room

“A joke, EDI I know.” Joker said before he noticed Shepard standing behind him frowning, before Shepard could say anything James spoke up.

“He deserved to see her Commander; if I need to be court marshaled for it then I accept that…”

“James even if I wanted to I really doubt that there’s an Alliance court anywhere around here so let’s just let it drop, how’re you two doing?” Shepard asked Liara and EDI.

“Besides the fact our doctor has a cane stuck up his flank we’re fine Shepard.” Liara told him from her bed.

“They still think that you’ll be out for another week and a half?” Shepard asked her.

“Yeah apparently magic isn’t as good as medigel at fixing bullet holes, then again we’re alive so that counts for something I suppose.”

“Get out of my patents’ room you idiots, they’re still healing and the last thing they need is to catch a virus from a bunch of unwashed soldiers!” From out of nowhere Dr. House had appeared behind them “The only reason I let the pegasus in here was because he begged!” Shepard shrugged, it wasn’t his hospital. and he wasn't a doctor.

***

Celestia looked at Luna’s virtually unmoving body deep in thought; the ponies who did this would pay dearly for injuring her baby sister.

Let the fun begin

Shepard and company spent the rest of the day moping around the Canterlot palace with defeated looks on their faces, the day passed uneventfully otherwise which Shepard suspected would be the case, most assassins liked to work primarily at night. Celestia retired to her bed early, almost immediately after she had raised the moon from its daily position. Shepard took his place feeling his muscles sink into the accustomed positions, if there was something that he hated about stakeouts it was the way that his muscles cramped after sitting in one place for an hour. Slowly true silence fell within the castle, while he was waiting sitting there in the dark Shepard began to memorize the layout of the room and the position of every object within it. He’d already done it discreetly during the daylight hours, but night changes a room, it makes objects bigger, shadows longer, and the atmosphere changes adding a feeling of slight menace to the atmosphere.

The other part of this particular plan that Shepard didn’t like was that he had given himself the lead role. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem; the problem was that to appear at all feminine Shepard had been forced to conceal himself in mare clothing. So he was covered in large blanket, and a floral bonnet to cover his face. Ash hadn’t been able to stop herself from snickering; she’d also mentioned something about bugs. At the stroke of midnight the door opposite Shepard creaked slightly as it opened, bringing his mind instantly alert. A pony backed by two griffins silently snuck into the room, long bladed knives easily visible in their belts. When they noticed Shepard apparently sleeping in front of the door in a small chair they chuckled to themselves, what could they have to fear from a solitary sleeping mare? They stepped closer and closer to Shepard. Stalking forward with all the grace of plow horses, they of course thought the opposite. One of the griffins reached to unsheathe his knife from his belt, but before his talons could touch the hilt Shepard pulled out his Carnifex and in a perfect imitation of Ash said.

“If your hooves touch metal then I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that I will end you!” The griffins stared at him for a moment before letting their talons drop to the side in defeat, the pony on the other hand looked at him in what appeared to be contempt.

“So the great Commander Ethan Shepard, I always heard that you were more connected to your feminine side, I just had no idea that you cross dressed too, how cute.” The pony said in one of the most gratingly cultured voice that Shepard had ever heard. “Tell me did you really think that this little charade would stop the greatest political upheaval in Equestrian history? My word I think you did, you actually think that you’ve won!” The pony then began to laugh, letting his pompous orange mane fall into his face as he shook with laughter; all the while Shepard let it play out, his face staying perfectly neutral. “What a poker face you have Shepard, but anyways we have kill teams slipping through every hallway and window in the palace, Celestia will be dead in a matter of minutes!” Finally Shepard laughed, it was a long hearty laugh, and then in one movement he shot both of the griffins in the head. As they slid down to the floor Shepard closed with the arrogant pony and punched him in the face before he could react, sending the blue coated idiot flying into the floor.

“Son I’ve been dealing with stupid arrogant little pricks like you for years, what your type don’t seem to realize is that your wealth and your power won’t protect you forever.” Shepard had been steadily applying pressure to the pony’s foreleg while he’d been talking and as he reached the word forever it broke with a quite snap causing the pony to scream in pain. “Now normally I wouldn’t be doing this to you, generally I’m a nice guy honest; if I took all the opportunities to cause pain then my kill tallies would be a lot longer. However I’m making an exception just for you, you should feel special. Ever since I’ve come here I’ve had this feeling that this place is perfect, there’s next to no violent crime, ruling class is fair and beloved by the commoners, and you little shits like you want to fuck it up just to further your lot in life? Well that makes me angry, very angry!” Shepard voice had dropped to a low venomous purr as he broke the second foreleg releasing another frenzied scream from his unwilling victim.

“Let me go!” The pony screamed he was close to hysterical at this point; Shepard leaned in close to his ear and pausing for empathies in between each word

“Who. Sent. You.”

“I don’t know, they never told us anything!” Shepard pulled out his Carnifex and prepared to shoot the pony in the head.

“Wrong answer!”

“Shepard stand down!” Arsenal had entered the room and once again the sound of a voice that sounded so like Anderson’s made Shepard stop in his tracks. “Commander just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m executing someone who’s worthless Captain.” Shepard replied calmly.

“Think Shepard you’ve already crossed several lines tonight with this act, do you really want to cross the last one and become a murderer?” A silent war went on in Shepard’s head as each side of his mind fought for dominance until he finally threw his Carnifex to the other side of the room in disgust.

“Thank you Arsenal, normally that’s my job.” Although he said it with sarcasm his voice shook ever so slightly.

“You are a mare Shepard!” the captive mumbled from his place on the ground, causing Arsenal to kick him in the face hard.

“Shut it you, I only saved you because we need you for questioning, apparently all the other kill team members were killed already.” Arsenal told Shepard with a shrug before he patted the Commander on the shoulder. “You should go and see the Princess, give her a situations report, clear your mind.” Shepard nodded silently and made his way over to the Princess’s door, picking up his Carnifex as he went. He found the White Princess sitting on her bed, with a pile of charred bodies lying around it.

“Commander, from the screams I assume things were satisfactory on your end?” Celestia asked him.

“Yes Ma’am and thank you for lifting the filter for me, the words needed to be said.”

“One time use Shepard, I can’t have you polluting the minds of Equestrian citizens with foul language.” She said it with a tight smile, a very tight smile, Shepard replied in kind.

AN
Yes, I did just make that reference

When in doubt

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ash asked Shepard as they sat next to each other on the bed.

“No Ash I really don’t!” Shepard almost growled at her, earning a hard look in return.

“Shepard if there was ever a time to talk to me about the things that are going through your head now would be it.”

“I told you Ash I don’t need therapy!” Shepard told her hotly his eyes shooting daggers at her, she stared right back.

“Look Ethan, you’ve been there for each and every member of your crew any time that we needed you, now you will stop acting like a five year old, dry your eyes, and talk to me!” Ash returned just as hotly positioning her body so that Shepard had no choice but to stare at her, finally Shepard sighed, she wasn’t going to stop till he talked.

“It’s this place, it’s so different from where we’re from but there are still ponies that will throw away all of that just to make a stupid powerplay! But it’s more than that, lately I’ve felt myself becoming more and more detached from the person that I was, I’m becoming a monster Ash!” Shepard yelled, startling several of the guards posted outside the door who looked at each other before shaking their heads, they knew better then to walk in on two shouting lovers.

“Shepard that’s insane…” Ash told him frankly “…There’s no man that I trust more then you to make the right decision, ever.”

“Ash I broke that stallion’s forelegs with my hooves while he cried out for mercy, then I almost shot him as he lay broken on the ground, and I would have without a regret if it wasn’t for Arsenal!” Ash reached up and touched his cheek tenderly.

“Ethan you can’t torture yourself about things, yes it was a bad decision, but you’ve learned from it. You won’t make the same mistake twice, and thanks to it we have a captive who is absolutely terrified of us and will tell us anything that we want to know.” She smiled slightly at the last part, before leaning herself over him smiling seductively “Now why don’t I get down and see how many times I can give you twenty?” The guards looked at each other before smiling and discreetly walking away from the bedroom door.

***

The next morning Shepard and Ash walked into the main dining hall to find that they were the last ones to get there.

“Late night Shepard?” Garrus asked with a slight smile.

“Yeah, Ash and I were touching up on some calibrations Garrus.” Shepard replied with a smile causing the rest of Shepard’s crew to break into laughter, it was good to have Shepard back to normal his funk had been highly disturbing.

“You should have invited me Shepard; after all you know how much I love those.” Garrus told him the smile on his face growing; Tali sighed and punched him in the stomach causing him to flinch in mock pain. “You could have come to Tali, I’m sure that you could have helped with measurements you’re usually very active.”

“One more and you sleep on whatever the equivalent of a couch is next time we’re in a town.” Tali told him without looking up from the muffin she was crunching. Celestia smirked, but Twilight and her friends missed the innuendo completely, except Rarity who sniggered softly to herself drawing questioning looks from her friends.

“They’re talking about sex darlings.” She told them, Twilight blushed furiously as the full meaning of the innuendo sank in; the others silently mouthed the word ‘oh’.

“So Princess has our prisoner told us anything useful yet?” Shepard asked turning his attention to Celestia and tacitly changing the subject, Celestia sighed.

“No, Arsenal spent the rest of the night grilling him for info before retiring for the night. The idiot is from a small uninfluential trading family where he got his grand dreams of revolution I’ll never know. Besides threatening to sue you for unarmed assult he hasn’t had much to say except that he knows nothing about who wants you, my sister, and I dead, which means that once again we’re at a dead end.” Twilight tapped her hoof on the table deep in thought before she slammed it down in excitement.

“Who do you turn to when all things seem hopeless?” a large smile split Celestia’s face

“Why the Paladins of course!” Celestia told her smiling happily down at Twilight from her place at the end of the table.

“And which Paladin usually has an unnatural sense of what we’re supposed to do?” Twilight asked the group, drawing smiles from her friends as Shepard’s group looked on in confusion. “PINKIE PIE!” Twilight shouted loudly. For a minute or two the room remained the same, but then Pinkie fell out of the ceiling but instead of landing heavily she went into a smooth roll.

“Hi everypony… hi Princess.” She said when she noticed Celestia looking at her in bemusement. “So what do you need? A party, a party cannon, a hidden blade, a MERV, an Spartan Laser, an lancer, a bolter, a light saber, the Cooper cane, the RHINO V, Soul Edge, the Keyblades, or maybe the Blades of Chaos. I could get you any of them, plus probably more depending on how the wall feels .” Pinkie told them rapidly while her eyes danced at the possibilities. “Or I could throw a party and invite all the ones who use them to it, that would be awsome!” The ponies all exchanged mystified glances, except Celestia who seemed horrified at the concept of that party.

“No Pinkie that’s alright, what we really need is to know where to look next.” Twilight told her bubbly pink friend before she went on listing strange ideas, Pinkie gave her a disappointed look.

“Aww fine you guys only want the most boring things, just go back to Ponyville, the plot should reassert itself there.” With that she vanished, leaving a small pink ribbon in her place.

“That would be one hay of a scary party.” Celestia muttered to herself as the rest of her dining companions looked in wonder at the place that Pinkie had just vacated.

AN
And before you ask she knows all of them

The return

“Tia dear I’ve finished fixing you sister’s brain ahead of schedule, but there was a slight problem…” Discord’s voice sounded inside her head dragging Celestia away from her lunch. She quickly excused herself from the table and went to her room where nopony could wonder why the Princess was staring blankly off into space with a glazed look in her eyes. As she entered the mental realm of Discord Celestia noticed that there were more of the floating jellyfish creatures flying around Discord’s castle then there normally were. As she landed inside of the main courtyard she was met by Discord who bowed exaggeratedly.

“As per your request Tia I have spent the last week or so repairing your sister’s mind, and I must say that it was truly an interesting experience. Alas I seem to have made an errm…slight mistake in regards to her language skills.” He began to lead her inside and up the stairs that led to the room where Discord had been treating her sister’s mind

“What do you mean?” Celestia asked him uncertainly, stopping in front of the door to her sister’s room.

“Well I attempted to make her speech patterns more modern…I succeeded, but I might have succeeded a little too well.” He said as he pushed the door open. Luna sat in bed reading a book, she looked remarkably better; she also looked a good deal taller and sleeker. As her sister entered the room Luna jumped to her hooves and grabbed her sister into a large hug.

“Like sister, it’s like amazing to see you and junk, Discord’s like a total bore and he’s like whatever.” Luna said while she hugged her sister, Celestia turned to stare at Discord, her gaze would have been deadly enough to kill a dragon.

“Discord…” Celestia said threateningly causing Discord to gulp in apprehension “…I swear to Faust that if you don’t fix this I’m going to make being trapped in here seem like a walk in the park.”

“Like sister what’s like wrong, I’m perfectly like fine and stuff?” Luna asked uncertainly, Celestia thought about trying to explain it but thought better of it.

“Tia dear calm down, I’m sure it’ll make her more popular in the court.” Discord stammered as Celestia advanced on him threateningly.

“You have two minutes to make her talk normally or I’ll send you to the inside of the sun.” Celestia told Discord while she charged her horn, which is when Luna started to laugh hysterically.

“I’m fine Cely, it was a joke” Luna said when she finally regained her composure enough to talk “I thought that you could probably use something to lighten your mood so I asked Discord to play along.” Celestia looked at her sister for a second before she started to laugh as well and she embraced Luna in a deep hug as they both laughed.

“Thank you Luna I needed that.” Celestia told her sister truthfully when they had both regained control.

“Don’t thank me; thank Discord from keeping me from being a vegetable, I think that you owe him something Cely.” Luna whispered the last part, Celestia sighed, perhaps it had been long enough to try again.

“Discord…” She said as she cleared her throat “…I think that thanks to your exemplary service towards the Royal Family that once this whole mess is over, I could see fit to remove you from your prison on the condition that any chaos that you cause while free doesn’t affect Equestria.” Celestia told the draconequus.

“Thank you Tia, that means a lot, but I suggest that the two of you leave quickly, the enemy has decided to remove me from the equation. I almost feel bad for his troops…almost.” Discord told them before he vanished in a flash of light leaving Celestia looking at the space that he had just occupied in confusion.

“The enemy is here in his mind?” Celestia asked Luna.

“Yes, it was thier mistake, unsurprisingly their losses number in the hundreds.” Luna told her sister nonchalantly “could you go to the hospital and get me out of there please, I’ll meet you in my room?” Luna told her sister before she to vanished in a flash. Celestia rushed back to her body and teleported to the hospital appearing right outside her sister’s room, startling House.

“Your sister just came out of a weeklong comma; no you may not take her back to the castle yet.” He told her without looking at her while he scanned a chart.

“House it was magically induced, she’s not contagious.” Celestia said in annoyance.

“Did you go to medical school and practice medicine for years before getting drunk and ending up as a pony who was immediately offered a job at the biggest hospital on this sugarbowl planet too…No then don’t tell me how to do the job that you kidnapped me to do!” House told her in annoyance.

“I hardly think that kidnap is the right word for it House.” Celestia told him in her defense.

“Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean kidnap, I meant forcibly relocate.”

“I did it so that you wouldn’t get in that car and end up killing yourself, you idiot!” Celestia told him her tolerance for him was at breaking point.

“It was still against my will; regardless your sister is far too weak to leave the hospital for at least another day or two.” He told her dropping the subject, he knew she was right but he would never tell her that.

“May I at least go in and see her?” Celestia asked him her temper cooling back to normal levels.

“Sure, I have a sexy blue coated mare to go and treat for a bullet wound anyways.” House said as he walked away. Celestia stepped into her sister’s room and was surprised to see that Luna’s body had increased in size just like her mental avatar had.

“Did you have a nice chat with House?” Luna asked Celestia as she looked up from the book that she was reading.

“Yes, he’s a real charmer.” Celestia replied dryly, Luna giggled in reply.

“Oh you just don’t know him very well; after you brought him here I helped him adjust. He really is charming once you get used to how much of a pain in the flank he is.” Luna told her, Celestia rolled her eyes; her sister had the oddest taste in friends.

“So how are you feeling?” Celestia asked her sister.

“I’ve had worse, but I agree with House I’m not ready to go back to the castle yet, I’m still too weak.” Luna replied looking at her sister regretfully.

“Don’t worry sister take all the time you need.”

***

As he sat on the seat of the train to Ponyville Shepard viewed the surrounding countryside his mind wandering from one topic to another, there was one topic that his mind just wouldn’t drop.

“Ash did Arsenal seem familiar to you?” Shepard asked Ash who was leaning against him reading a book.

“Now that you mention it, he seemed like a carbon copy of Anderson” Ash mused “You don’t think…?” she trailed off.

“Yeah, yeah I do.” Shepard replied.

“Well this changes things.” Ash said.

“I wonder who else is here.” Shepard said before returning his gaze to the rolling countryside. When they left the train they were greeted by a large crowd of journalists who started yelling questions in Shepard’s direction as cameras went off in bright flashes.

“Commander Shepard!”

“Commander Shepard!”

“Can I get an interview please?”

“How do you feel in about the attempted assassination of Princess Celestia?”

“Is it true that you are the one responsible for the large number of bloody Griffin corpses recently found both outside Canterlot and inside the Everfree forest?”

“What’s your opinion of the palace guard?” Garrus leaned over to Shepard and whispered.

“Let me take care of this. Ponies, ponies please settle down the Commander just finished saving the life of your Princess, I would think that the least you could do would be ask him your questions one at a time!” The crowd of journalists quitted down, Shepard looked at Garrus questioningly. “C-Sec taught me how to deal with journalists Commander.” Garrus told him quietly.

“Commander Shepard, I’m Moondiver from the Equestria Daily News, how were you involved in the shootings in Ponyville a week ago?” asked a blue coated white maned unicorn wearing a fedora.

“I was the target of the shooting.” Shepard answered

“So it was your fault that they took place, how could you put the public in danger in such a disrespectful way?” Moondiver asked Shepard accusingly, Ash stiffened next to him but Shepard touched her on the shoulder steadyingly.

“At the time I wasn’t aware of the fact that somepony had put out a hit on me, it certainly wasn’t my intention to get other ponies injured, including two of my squad mates.” Shepard told her.

“Can you confirm the reports that you broke an unarmed pony’s forelegs for your own sick pleasure?” Moondiver asked him, her voice accusatory.

“That ‘unarmed pony was leading a hit squad who planned on killing Celestia, I did what I believed was right at the time in order to keep the royal family safe.”

“So what you are suggesting is that if I believe that something is bad will happen I’m, allowed to break somepony’s forelegs to prevent it because I think I’m right, is that the kind of lesson that you want little foals and fillies to learn?” before Shepard could answer Twilight stepped forward.

“Miss Moondiver I understand the type news that sells papers is sensational, but Shepard and his team are the only reason that Luna isn’t our current monarch, I think that the least that he deserves is a thank you.” Twilight told the reporter forcefully, the reporter instead of being cowed turned to Twilight.

“Miss Sparkle I’m so glad to be talking to you again, I believe that the last time you and I talked we were discussing the disastrous results of one of your experiments, something to do with turning all of the water in Ponyville into fruitpunch.” Twilight blushed remembering the debacle.

“Moondiver you have exactly five seconds to stop asking my friends personally invasive questions before I lose my temper, you don’t want that.” Fluttershy told Moondiver, fixing Moondiver with one of her more minor stares. Moondiver flinched, before she started to back away slowly. “If there are any other questions to be asked of us I would appreciate that you all ask them politely.” Fluttershy told the assembled journalists, most of whom followed Moondiver’s example. One of the few that stayed was a white unicorn whose coat was streaked with purple lines.

“Commander Shepard, my name is Mirage I represent a small newspaper that hails from Manehattan, and I was wondering if you could be bothered to take a few minutes of your time to tell my readers the full story of why you’re here and what you’ve been doing since you arrived. My bosses look down on the type of journalism used by the other companies so I promise you that your word will not be twisted in any way, shape, or form.” Shepard smiled, finally a friendly journalist, he’d all but given up hope of ever finding something so elusive.

“I’ll gladly answer your questions Miss Mirage.” Shepard told her. A few hours later the group found themselves in Twilight’s library looking through the various books that she had on display in an attempt to discover what they were supposed to be doing. Suddenly Spike came running into the room.

“Twilight I just received a letter from Princess Celestia, apparently Luna is awake again!” Twilight let out a sigh of built up stress that had been weighing heavily on her mind all week.

“That’s great news Spike!” she told the small dragon.

“Oh and apparently Pinkie popped back in and told her to tell you to check under E.” Spike continued with a slight smile on his face.

“But what could possibly be under E that would relate to this?” Twilight asked Spike who shrugged. Twilight went over to the section of the library and looked under E; sitting on the shelf was a book that looked like it hadn’t been opened in a hundred years. The title read ‘When dealing with mysterious Enemies’ underneath that was a sub title that said ‘we can solve all of your mysterious enemy related problems’ Twilight looked at the book for a few seconds before she said. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!”

Exposition and uneasy implications

Instead of bringing the book out with her to show the group Twilight told them that she needed to study something and that she’d be back down later when she was done. As she walked into her bedroom she looked at the book again, this was too much, there was no way that something this coincidental actually existed; it just couldn’t. With a resigned sigh Twilight opened the book to the first page.

Welcome to the first page of ‘When dealing with mysterious Enemies’ this book was put together to help those who are in dire striates and have nowhere else to turn. As the editor of this book I am very aware of the fact that this book probably looks far to coincidental to exist under whatever circumstances that you happen to be bogged down in, but trust me that’s part of the book’s magic. This book utilizes a system where everything that you need to find can be easily found by using the index, the index will then send you to another index which will either send you to another index or it will send you to the corresponding page. For example if you are looking for a mysterious black coated group then you would look for the black coat index, then you would survey the index for the tropes associated with the group that you are after. Once you recognize enough similar tropes you are ready to go to the page number which lists all of the known black coated groups, once there you simply see which matches the most tropes. From there you go to the page of the group that you have identified which should give you all the appropriate information to solve whatever problem you may be confronted with. If this is your first time hearing the word trope, it is a term used to describe something or someone that can be universally recognized.Warning this book is protected by extremely strong magic, any attempts to tamper with any of the print will be automatically deleted, furthermore thanks to several spells the book had been condensed so that it looks like a normal sized book, in actuality the book contains well over several trillion pages

When she was done reading the editors note Twilight rubbed her head trying to clear it, this book was impossible, but she found herself drawn to it as if by some magic force. She flipped to the second page and was confronted by an incredibly long index.

This is the index index, this is mostly just a formality but it helps you find an index page if you already know what index you are looking for, if this doesn’t apply to you turn to page five for the real index.

Twilight was enthralled; this book was set up exactly as she would have set it up if she were the writer. She flipped to page five and scanned her way through the huge index that took up several pages before she landed on the subject index for transdimensional travelers; that seemed a likely place to start.

The transdimensional travelers are people or things that come from a completely different dimension and can come in two specific types, the friendly ones and the unfriendly ones. The friendly ones typically have no idea how they ended up where they are and in most cases will befriend most people that they come across. The unfriendly are for the most part extremely dangerous and know exactly what they are doing in your dimension. They normally have extremely intricate plans that are very hard to understand from the outside and will often attempt to harm you. Unfortunately for the friendly ones when they come across they often bring the unfriendly ones with them. For the index on friendly transdimensional travelers please turn to page 959, for the index on unfriendly transdimensional travelers turn to page 969.

Twilight pondered which index she should turn to, she was eager to see of the index had anything about Shepard, but she also didn’t want to waste time that could be better used looking up their enemies. In the end she decided to compromise, she would look at first one and then the other. She decided to start out with the index on friendly travelers. The first several pages were taken up by beings who use portals including a group from somewhere called Midkemia, then an exceedingly long part of the index was given over to those used devices or vehicles. A large part of that section was taken up by a group oddly called the Dr. Twilight continued to read until she landed upon the index labeled rebirth.

Rebirth makes up a surprisingly large amount of travelers, most that go through the process have no idea how it happened or what caused it, as far as their universe is concerned they should be dead. There are many reasons for rebirth most of which include the meddling of gods from different dimensions who couldn’t stand to watch the traveler be killed off for real. In some cases the traveler may not remember anything about their past lives except for an aching desire to remember their past, if this is the case be prepared to listen to them moan and bitch about it every second of every day. For tropes associated with those who have lost their memory turn to page 1001.

Twilight frowned, that didn’t sound like Shepard who remembered all of his past and was almost never melancholy.

If you are lucky enough to get one who remembers his past completely then turn to page 1003 for the tropes associated with that.

Ok that sounds like Shepard, Twilight thought to herself as she turned to pg1003. Twilight did so and soon began matching up the tropes that she thought of when she thought about Shepard, she then turned to the page where you matched tropes. She skipped past someone called Master Chief, someone called Gordon Freeman, and several others before she stumbled upon a picture of someone who looked remarkably like Shepard.

Commander Shepard can be many things that are decided by which dimension he hails from, some Shepards may be ruthless killers while others will be honest soldiers who just want the universe to be fixed for five minutes, although they aren’t above extreme feats of badass. Shepard has recently been appearing everywhere from Equestria to that of Fallout thanks to the way that he is destined to be killed within every version of his own universe. In most cases his crew will join him and under extremely negative circumstances so will his major enemies such as Cerberus, if you are reading this then they are most likely the ones to blame for any current hardships that you are facing, their page may be found on Pg 1029.

Twilight was shocked, there was an on Equestria putting her current predicament to the back of her mind if only just for a minute Twilight folded down the page that she was on before returning to the main index until she found the index entry labeled Equestria. Twilight turned to the page known as the main Equestrian index.

There are several versions of Equestria all of which are occupied by talking ponies who can typically fly or use magic, however up until recently the dimensions of Equestria were ignored thanks to the fact that nobody could stand to be there for more than a minute. Recently however a new group of dimensions were added, the main players of these dimensions are known collectively as the Mane Six. The Mane Six are made up of Twilight Sparkle who is an incredibly powerful magic user, Pinkie Pie who is a dimensional traveler who shows a blatant disregard for the laws of reality among other things…Rarity who is very generous and depending on the universe kind of a whore, Applejack who is a hard working farm pony, Rainbow Dash who has the odd ability to set off sonic booms which result in rainbows, for whatever reason. Lastly is Fluttershy who is extremely skilled with animals and has the ability to out stare a dragon and several other things, it is advised not to try and outstare her, it may result in aneurisms. The Mane Six are typically lorded over by the duel Princesses Celestia and Luna, Celestia may be honest kind and powerful, or lustful, tyrannical, and evil. Her sister Luna however is almost always on the side of good and most often plays a role as a woobie. For more information on Equestria turn to page 2003

Twilight set the book down in shock, her universe had just been summed up very neatly, if somewhat snarkily by a book, she wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or terrified. Instead of turning to the page directed Twilight quickly turned back to her marker and proceeded to turn to the entry one Cerberus.

Cerberus is a pro human terrorist group from the Mass Effect universe; they have been recently confirmed to be completely evil and will do almost anything to raise humanities’ galactic standing. Their leader The Illusive Man is a determined and intelligent individual who is not to be challenged lightly except by Commander Shepard and even then it is ill-advised. If Shepard has come to your dimension, especially through the process of rebirth, then Cerberus have most likely followed him and are the ones making your life miserable. Unfortunately if you are reading this while looking for their current plot then I can supply no further information as it would make your life far too easy, the rest of this page will appear blank…

Twilight sighed, so they knew who they were fighting but not what their motives or plans were, this was going to be a long day. Pinkie who had been watching her friend read the book from another dimension giggled to herself, things were getting good. Then she turned to the readers and winked, it was going to be a good day to be pink.

AN
In case you aren’t you missed it the book is essentially a low tech version of TV Tropes, blame Pinkie.

The last breath of peace

“Guys how long has Twilight been ‘researching’” Dash asked her friends who were lounging around Twilight’s house waiting for the purple unicorn to emerge from her room.

“Now that you mention it Sugarcube she’s been in there for twelve hours straight.” AJ replied.

“I’ll go and see what she’s found.” Spike said as he headed up the stairs to Twilight’s room, he knocked lightly on the door but received no answer. “Twilight can I come in?” he called raising his voice.

“Yeah, um, sure, I’m busy but sure.” Twilight called back distractedly. Spike opened the door and slowly walked into the room, he found Twilight sitting on her bed with Pinkie’s book held in front of face with magic, she looked like she’d been crying but all the tears were now dry.

“Twilight are you ok, you look like you’ve been crying?” Spike asked her.

“What? Oh right sorry I was just reading something sad, I shouldn’t have dived into the other Equestria universes like I did.” She replied a little mournfully.

“What are you talking about Twilight?”

“I just finished reading the story of Fallout Equestria, it’s sad that’s all.” Twilight told him as he looked at her in confusion.

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about Twilight, but didn’t you say that you were doing research?” Twilight nodded.

“I finished a while ago, I’ve been skimming through this book ever since, the thing is enormous!” Spike sighed, typical Twilight.

“Twilight do you even know what time it is?” he asked her incredulously.

“I assume it’s almost time for dinner.” Twilight replied causing Spike to facepalm.

“Twilight…” he said slowly “…diner was eight hours ago!” Twilight blushed; she had no idea that she’d spent that long looking through the book.

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry Spike, this thing just sucks you in and keeps you there…” Twilight’s train of thought was cut off suddenly by her stomach’s loud roar. “I guess I’m hungry.” Twilight said embarrassedly looking down at her stomach.

“Come on I’ll get you a daisy sandwich.” Spike told her as he headed down the stairs.

“What happened to Shepard and his group?” Twilight asked Spike as she surveyed the main room and saw only her friends.

“He decided to go back to that house that Pinkie built them; he mentioned something about needing a little R and R.” Spike replied.

“How was your research Twilight?” Dash asked Twilight as entered the main room from where she was sitting on the couch with Fluttershy peacefully sleeping next to her.

“It went great Dash, I found a lot of what we’re looking for, and I now have the most incredible book I’ve ever had!” Twilight told Dash in excitement as she thought about the book.

“Maybe you should let me read it Twi, it sounds interesting.” Dash replied as she slowly got up from the couch, being careful not to Disturb Fluttershy who let out a cute little snore causing Dash to look at her lovingly. “When this is over we need to make Celestia revoke Fluttershy’s Paladinship, the only time that she’s really Fluttershy is when she’s asleep, or in bed.” Dash said with a tiny note of regret in her voice as she thought about how Fluttershy was acting.

“I’m sure that it can be arranged Dash, Celestia only did it because she knew that we’d need her like this.” Twilight told her friend.

“Which is what worries me Twilight; I haven’t mentioned this to anypony but Fluttershy, but I keep having conversations in my head with a mare that died thousands of years ago and claims to be my great, great, great…” Twilight cut her off with a hoof and motioned her to skip all of the greats “anyways she says she was a Paladin but I don’t know whether or not to believe her, what if I’m going crazy? What if Celestia needs us to go insane to beat whoever is after Shepard? What if it’s permanent and we die terribly in a large ball of fire and brimstone!” at this point Dash was shuddering in uncharacteristic fright. Twilight wrapped her in a hug and held her until the trembling stopped.

“Dash I’m sure that Celestia doesn’t want us insane, if she did we already would be, and what’s the name of this mare that claims to be your grandmother?” Twilight asked Dash

“Shika” Dash told her drawing a shocked expression from Twilight

“Shika was a member of one of the greatest Paladins outside of the first generation Dash, you should be honored to be related to her.” Inside Dash’s head Shika chuckled, before the conversation could get any farther AJ and Spike returned from the kitchen with a platter of daisy sandwiches and apple tarts.

“Here ya go Twilight eat up.” AJ told Twilight as she set the platters down on a small table. Twilight quickly grabbed a hooffull and popped a tart into her mouth letting out a small sigh of happiness as the apple filled her mouth.

“So where’s Rarity?” Twilight asked after she had finished her first tart.

“She went back home to spend some quality time with ‘Tom’ she said that he’d been feeling neglected.” Dash told her a ghost of a smile tracing her lips.

“We couldn’t have that now could we, Tom is a very important member of our friend group.” Twilight replied.

“Yeah I just wish he wasn’t so cold to Rarity, he’s a silent as a boulder sometimes.” Dash said, her smile growing larger.

“I think that yall should stop picking on her, the girl’s messed up enough without yall two mockin her.” AJ told them.

“We aren’t mocking her AJ, we’re just idly commenting on her love affair with a giant rock, it’s not like we’re judging her.” Dash said shrugging.

“I can tell when you’re lying Dash.” AJ told her friend.

“Girls enough, look it’s late I should probably get some sleep, you can either stay here or go home, either way I need sleep.” Twilight told her friends before their argument could get any more heated.

“I got to go and say hi to ma family so I might as well sleep there, see you in the morning everypony.” AJ said before she walked out the door and into the night.

“I’ll just sleep next to Fluttershy.” Dash told Twilight as she snuggled herself up to the sleeping yellow pegasus who quickly rolled over onto her. Twilight and Spike quietly made their way upstairs and turned out the lights.

AN
Sorry for the absolute shortness of this chapter, but I reached just over a hundred pages in word so I’m working on a little celebratory piece to mark the occasion which should be up later today, it’s going to be non canon btw

Just a little preface this is my celebration at having reached over one hundred pages of story in word this is completely out of the story’s canon so treat it as a standalone piece. Thanks to Pinkie being Pinkie she can break the laws of physics and more importantly canon, unfortunately those laws go back into being once the characters leave. Thanks to the huge amount of universes that Pinkie has been to you may recognize many characters if not just ask me and I’ll explain who they are. Also unmarked spoilers for many different books, games, TV shows and movies, read at your own risk.

The best party ever

Twilight Sparkle had had her doubts about Pinkie Pie’s sanity before; then again everypony in Ponyville is insane. Even she was on occasion, but what Pinkie had told her to do was absolutely insane.

“You’ll be fine Twilight; all you have to do is jump in a circle and yell FOREVER. Then you’ll appear at the party house.” Twilight said in a sarcastic imitation of Pinkie’s voice while she walked towards Everfree forest, which was the only place she felt that it was ok to make a complete idiot of herself. As she neared the forest she decided that this would have to do and began to jump around in a circle for a few minutes before she yelled.

“FOREVER” much to Twilight’s considerable surprise she found herself standing outside a large white walled mansion, coming out of the mansion was the distinct beat of techno and flashing multi colored lights. Twilight went up to the door and knocked uncertainly, the door was opened by a short human in a jesters outfit.

“Hello, do you happen to have an invitation or has Miss Pinkie neglected to give you one like the rest?” the man asked her in a voice that was somewhere between jaded and sarcastic. Twilight looked at the man in shock, it wasn’t that she’d never seen a human before, it was just that he was such an ordinary human who looked completely out of place inside his outfit.

“Haskill stop being such a downer this is Twilight.” Pinkie said from behind Haskill

“Of course madam.” Haskill replied deadpanly as he stepped out of Twilight’s way. As Haskill stepped out of the way Twilight caught her first view of the party, it took her breath away. Standing around talking to each other, drinking and eating together, or dancing together were more strange humans and other species then Twilight had ever seen before.

“So Twilight what do you think of the party?” Pinkie asked her friend as she led Twilight into the house.

“Pinkie where are we?” Twilight asked her friend uncertainly.

“Oh we’re at a plane between dimensional planes that can be accessed by anyone who knows how; I have a super special deal with the guy who runs it he lets me throw as many parties as I want in exchange I make sure that we aren’t canceled.”

“Canceled, Pinkie how could we be canceled?” Twilight asked Pinkie in confusion, instead of answering her Pinkie grabbed a cupcake and handed it to Twilight.

“Trust me Twilight you wouldn’t understand, now get out there and mingle the crowd is great tonight!” Pinkie enthused before she walked back towards the entrance to great a very confused man in a leather duster carrying a large wooden staff.

“Yeah mingle.” Twilight said with sarcasm as she looked around for someone who looked even a little approachable, in the end she decided on two ordinary looking guys sitting at a table talking. “Umm hi cool party right?” Twilight asked them.

“Ford the purple pony is talking to us.” Said one

“Arthur why do you always have to state the obvious?” Ford asked his Arthur

“Coping mechanism.” Arthur replied, Ford turned to address Twilight.

“Yeah the party is pretty swanky, almost beats Millways, so this your first time?”

“Yes, I’m confused who are all of these people?”

“Well I’m Ford, and this is Arthur we’re a couple of hitchhikers out to see the galaxy, as for the rest I haven’t the faintest idea. Now if you’ll excuse me I desperately need a Gargleblaster.” He waved to a waiter who brought over a tray; Twilight assumed that that was all she was going to get out of them so she wandered away.

Pinkie waited at the door expectantly as the latest guests arrived; it was two teenaged boys and a teenaged girl, both of the boys’ hair was extremely spiky but one’s was white while the other’s was brown, over their shoulders all three carried large Keyblades.

“Glad you could make it Sora!” Pinkie enthused as they drew closer causing the brown haired guy to smile.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world Pinkie, who’s here?” Sora asked

“And more importantly what kind of alcohol do you have?” the white haired guy asked her drawing an annoyed look from the girl.

“Too many to count, and more than enough.” Pinkie told them as she moved out of their way; it was turning into a really good party. Pinkie then surveyed the dance floor and found that somepony had replaced the techno with smooth waltzing music. Couples were elegantly spinning each other around in incredible displays of grace; at the center of it were two couples. One was a familiar masked raccoon spinning a fox around, while the other was a man who looked slightly awkward dancing with a startling beautiful woman. Way to go Mal, Pinkie thought to herself before taking in the rest of the party.

At a table off to the right Master Chief and Cortana were in deep conversation with Ratchet an Clank, to their left Markus and Dom were having a drinking contest with two of the Warhammer Spacemarines, it wouldn’t end well for them. As she continued to scan the room she noticed Dresden having a nerdgasm as he simultaneously talked to Gandalf and Luke Skywalker.

“An excellent party we’re having this evening madam…” Haskill told her from his position next to the door. “...although I do worry about leaving my lord by himself for too long unattended, he has a habit of ‘going mad’.”

“Don’t worry Haskill; I’m sure your master will be fine.” Pinkie told him before she said “Now it’s time to party!” Haskill sighed as she ran off into the crowds. Twilight was still completely lost among all of the different people and beings that surrounded her, she noticed a group of people wearing white hoods which looked remarkably like eagle beaks talking and laughing together mentioning something about Templers. She decided that they were probably not the right people for her to be talking to, before she could go much farther Rainbow Dash of all ponies emerged out of the crowd.

“Twilight what are you doing here?” Dash asked her friend in bewilderment.

“I could ask you the same thing Dash.” Twilight replied slightly annoyed

“Well Pinkie invited me of course, I love these parties!” Dash responded doing a midair back flip.

“Wait you knew about these?” Twilight asked her in amazement.

“Of course I did Twi Pinkie’s been inviting Rarity and I for years.”

“And you never told me about it?” Twilight asked her friend with a hurt look

“Oh don’t be like that Twi, if we’d told you a year ago you would have called us all crazy, besides how close are you to freaking out?”

“Really close actually.” Twilight replied

“Then I suggest you avoid going over there, Celestia and Luna are having their annual drink off and I don’t think that your brain could take it, especially with Discord judging.” Twilight’s jaw dropped and she stared at Dash.

“Here Twilight follow me I know a table where you should be fine.” Dash told her before leading her over to a side table occupied by two other ponies. One was a brown coated pegasus wearing a cowboy hat and the other was a black unicorn with a white mane.

“Howdy Dash, who’s you friend.” The pegasus asked.

“This is Twilight, I’m sure you’ve heard of her, this is her first party and she’s taking it kinda badly, could you two make sure that she doesn’t go crazy I still want to get some dancing in?” Dash asked them.

“Of course go right ahead, this isn’t the first time that Calamity and I’ve had to keep somepony from going crazy.” Replied the unicorn in a beautiful voice

“Thanks Velvet, gota fly.” Dash then sped off back to the dance floor.

“You alright kid?” The pegasus asked Twilight, who looked uncertainly around her before answering

“I’m not sure; this is all too much to take in.” The black unicorn nodded, she knew what Twilight meant.

“I understand, the only reason that we’re here is that for some reason Pinkie’s invitation extends to a certain friend of ours, and it’s the only time that we really get to see her now days.”

“I’m sorry…?” Twilight said not really understanding

“Don’t worry about it; she and Homage are off somewhere so it doesn’t really matter anyways. So do you have any questions about what’s going on here?” Velvet asked her.

“Yes how is this conversation even possible?”

“As to that we don’t really know, but you should ask Pinkie later, anything else.” Calamity drawled.

“Is there anypony that I really shouldn’t talk to here?” Twilight asked with the odd feeling that she’d overstayed her welcome. Velvet motioned over to the main bar where a large shirtless man with red tattoos and scars running up his chest stood casting an imposing shadow over most of the bar around him.

“You should avoid going anywhere near him, that’s Kratos, he kills gods for a pastime, other than that most people will at least humor you.” Velvet told her.

“Thanks I think I’ll try and mingle now.” Twilight told them as she got unsteadily from her chair. Calamity and Velvet exchanged glances before they both started to snicker once she was far enough away. One table over a guy in a jumpsuit with the words ‘Vault 101’ on them sighed, he was lucky enough to have gotten a second chance, not everybody was so lucky in the wasteland.

Twilight decided that the best thing that she could do at this point was get pleasantly buzzed so she headed over to the bar. Much to her surprise the bartender was a blue skinned female humanoid with slightly scaly skin.

“What’ll it be dear?” asked the bartender in a surprisingly deep voice, not creepy deep just surprising.

“Umm cider please.” Twilight responded unsteadily, she wasn’t used to having many options for drinking.

“Sure kid coming right up.” Said the bar tender as she reached under the bar and brought up a small barrel of cider and poured a glass for Twilight before she pushed it over to her. “So is this your first time at a Pinkie party?”

“No but I’ve never been to one in-between dimensions before.” Twilight replied “How’d you know?”

“It’s the fact that you look like you just stepped out of a coma.” Replied the bartender easily as she looked around to make sure that no one else needed her.

“I look that bad?” Twilight asked her in concern.

“Yeah, I would suggest only drinking a glass of that or you’ll wake up tomorrow with a raging headache and somebody of a completely different species lying next to you.” The bartender told her with a shrug “not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, I’m asari so I can’t judge.” Twilight was astonished by the frankness that the bartender talked with, it sounded like she’d seen it all.

Meanwhile Pinkie was making her rounds when she noticed an eight year old boy running around in his underwear yelling sugar while he was pursued by a blue creature yelling for him to come back. Pinkie sighed, people needed to learn not to give Mac candy, especially considering this was the tenth time that it had happened. As she walked through the part of the house devoted to being far bigger on the inside then on the outside in order to accommodate many of the larger creatures that called the many dimensions that Pinkie traveled to home she spied a large black dragon talking to a human standing next to him.

“Laurence I have been studying math and science for a long time at this point and this whole place mystifies me, do you have any idea how it could exist at all?” Laurence sighed and in an English accent replied.

“My dear if you don’t then I certainly won’t.” Pinkie greeted them cheerfully as she made her way back to the main room. Much to her surprise she found Twilight dealing with her surroundings quite nicely, if somewhat drunkenly, which was surprising in itself because Twilight wasn’t a very big drinker. Pinkie smiled and waved at Celestia and Luna who were still engaged in their drinking contest, which was one of many that were currently going on around them. Among the drinkers Markus and Dom were somehow still holding their own against the two Spacemarines. Although they looked much worse than the marines, it might have been something about the marines’ metabolism, or the fact that the marines were Ragnar Blackmane of the Space Wolves and Alaric of the Grey Knights might have also had something to do with it. Pinkie also noticed a group of ODST headed by Buck of course who looked like they were about to start a friendly brawl with the members of Noble Team, Pinkie actually wasn’t sure who to bet on.

“Pinkie my comrade it is good to see you again, Sasha and I were worried that we would miss you on our way!” Shouted the Heavy in a Russian accent as he pulled Pinkie into a bonecrushing hug.

“It’s good to see you to Heavy, and you to Sasha.” Pinkie replied as the huge man set her down “Are any of the other team members here?”

“I don’t think so, maybe the Spy but you could never tell!” the Heavy started to laugh heartily and set off at a stumbling gait towards the door.

“You certainly surround yourself with charming people Ma’am.” Haskill said from behind her.

“I know right, I wonder where Twilight went?” Pinkie asked Haskill not really expecting an answer, instead he pointed out Twilight who was making drunken small talk with a short horse named Tug. “I wonder whether I should stop her or not?” Pinkie mused to herself until she saw Tug give her a wink that meant that he would keep her friend from doing anything that she would regret. Pinkie nodded her thanks to the small horse and decided that it was time for a drink. She walked up to the bar where she found Kratos putting away shots and staring menacingly at Percy Jackson muttering something about smashing his face in. “Kratos what did I tell you about threatening the children of gods from other dimensions who are in no way related to the way that you were treated?” Pinkie asked Kratos which caused his shot glass to break in his hand.

“Pinkie, look at the arrogant spark in his eye, he’s mocking me, nobody mocks Kratos!” Jackson had noticed Pinkie and waved at her, which caused Kratos to reach for his blades.

“Kratos not that I don’t think that you could kill Percy, I somewhat doubt that you could kill everyone in this house that calls him a friend, which is pretty much everypony.” Pinkie told the enraged demigod sternly, she may have not liked being the voice of reason, but she could do it regardless when things called for it. Kratos growled in frustration and made his way towards the door, probably going to attack the Egyptian Pantheon.

“Church I told you we could pick up chicks with the tank!” Pinkie heard Tucker call to Church as she was walking through the main room.

“I had a chick once, but then I ate on it and it stopped being a chick and I was very sad.” Caboose replied before Church could say anything. Pinkie liked Caboose he reminded her of herself.

After drunkenly talking to the nice horse Tug for a while Twilight had decided to wander around more, eventually she heard a conversation about magic and decided to investigate. Sitting around a table were two old men with white hair and long beards wearing long flowing robes, and one tall man in a leather duster who was listening to the two men with something verging on hero worship.

“…So you see Albus that’s why I didn’t just summon the giant eagles to take the ring to Mordor.” Concluded one of the men

“Excuse me but why didn’t you just teleport it there?” Twilight asked the wizards breaking them out of their train of conversation; all three regarded her with great intensity before Albus burst into laughter.

“You must be Twilight Sparkle, it’s a pleasure to meet you young lady. I’m sure Gandalf would have if it were up to him, however the gods of his dimension are slightly more restricting then the ones from your dimension. Come sit down and we’ll have a nice discussion about the nature of magic.” Albus told her offering her a seat next to him.

“Harry Dresden, I’m always happy to meet another Twilight.” The man in leather told her, causing her to give him an odd look.

“What do you mean another Twilight?” she asked even with the alcohol clouding her head she was caught off guard.

“My dear you are one of hundreds of trillions of Twilight Sparkles, although even as drunk as you are you are still the most polite that I’ve ever met.” Albus told her, Twilight shrugged, maybe it was the drink, or maybe it was because of all the things that she’d seen that night but the idea that there were more of her running around didn’t surprise her.

“So about the nature of magic…” Twilight asked.

The next morning Twilight awoke with a start, her head was pounding, her eyes were bloodshot, and her entire body ached. She looked around her to make sure that she was alone and sighed with relief that she hadn’t accidentally invited anypony home with her like she had that one time while she was still in magic academy. Suddenly Pinkie dropped out of the ceiling and onto her bed.

“Pinkie please tell me we didn’t do anything together last night.” Twilight moaned.

“Don’t worry Twilight all we did was go to an interdimensional party, you got completely wasted and kept yelling something about physical gods, and then you got in on the drinking game between Celestia and Luna. It was really fun, don’t worry we get to do it all again next week!” Twilight buried her head in her pillow; it would be a long wait.

An
Yes I’m aware of the irony that this is by far the longest chapter in the story

Ready? Set? Rock!

Shepard and Ash walked into the main room of their little building and discovered that for once they were the first ones to arrive. Shepard used his magic to levitate a muffin over and passed it to Ash who took it with a grateful nod before he grabbed one for himself.

“Ash there’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Shepard told Ash around a bite of his muffin.

“Shoot Ethan.” She replied while she looked around the kitchen for something to drink.

“Well you’ve been awfully silent on the topic of God since we got here, not that I mind of course, it’s just kind of out of character for you.” Shepard was nervous about bringing it up, he wasn’t the most religious guy.

“Shepard at the very least there are three physical gods living here, two of which we’ve met and are worshiped as queens. I’m not changing my beliefs but I’m not going to insult the local gods by asking them why they haven’t accepted Christ into their hearts, besides just being bad manners I have the sinking suspicion that it would get me fried.” Ash told him mater-of-factly.

“That makes sense.” Shepard replied with a little inward sigh of relief, he’d been dreading Ash trying to give Celestia a lecture on religion.

“Shepard you didn’t really think that I would do that, did you?” Ash asked sounding slightly hurt.

“Well you did try on Wrex, and Garrus, and Tali, and when you met her in the temple you tried to do it to Samara, so I was slightly…worried that I would have to find a new girl because you’d be a pile of ash Ash.” Shepard told her and then ducked the muffin that she had thrown lightly at his head. Before things could go much farther Garrus and Tali emerged from their room causing Ash and Shepard to settle down.

‘Morning Shepard, so what are we doing today, please tell me it’s something suicidal?” Garrus asked with a grin on his face.

“That’s up to Twilight and whatever she’s found Garrus, but if we get the chance to do something suicidal then I promise to let you go first.” Shepard replied his grin matching Garrus’s.

“Excellent.” Garrus and Shepard said at the same time while Tali and Ash rolled their eyes simultaneously. There was a knock at the door.

“It’s open.” Shepard called from his place at the table. The door opened and Twilight walked in with a medium sized book floating magically next to her head.

“Commander Shepard I believe I’ve found the cause of all of our recent problems, what do you know about an organization by the name of Cerberus?” Shepard and his crew exchanged worried glances; you could have heard a pin drop in the silence that greeted her question.

“You think that Cerberus is behind the assignation attempt on Celestia and I.” Shepard said, it wasn’t a question.

“Yes, yes I do. After consulting this text, which I’ll let you skim over as soon as we’re done talking, Cerberus seems to be the most likely source of these attacks.”

“I blew up their base and killed all of their best people; I doubt that they could even be here let alone have the influence to set up a large powerbase.” Shepard told her doubtfully

“Shepard weren’t you recently among the deceased?” Twilight asked him dryly while she raised an eyebrow.

“Touché” Shepard replied while he thought it over.

“When did you have time to visit Paris?” Twilight asked him drawing a stunned look from Ash.

“How could you have been to Paris?” Ash asked Twilight.

“Well it’s a long commute but I’ve been twice.”

“Twilight I hate to burst your bubble, but Paris is in France, which is a part of Europe on the planet Earth, which resides in and orbits around the star Sol, in the Milkyway galaxy.”

“Actually it’s on the other side of Equestria.” Twilight corrected.

“Ash every city that I’ve heard them mention has a horse pun for a name, let it go.” Shepard told Ash with a sigh as he turned back to Twilight. “So what makes you think that Cerberus is involved?”

“Circumstantial evidence and this rather enlightening book.” Twilight replied tossing Shepard the book.

***

Dash woke up with Fluttershy sleeping contentedly on top of her; with a rueful smile Dash disentangled herself from Fluttershy, after all even if Twilight had left that didn’t mean Spike wasn’t still around somewhere and that was hardly the best thing for a baby dragon to see. When did ponies get so bashful about sex, back in my day nopony cared who saw you doing what, this one time Shalkan and I even… Shika said from inside her head before Dash cut her off. Please stop, the last thing I want or need to hear about is my extremely great grandparents having kinky sex!She heard Shika sigh in annoyance and drift to the back of her mind. Dash decided that the only thing that she could really do at the moment was to make breakfast for Fluttershy, after all Twilight would be gone for around an hour and Dash had nothing better to do. As she was walking towards the kitchen however she noticed a group of heavily muscled and well armed griffins approaching the library with murder in their eyes.

“Oh Buck.” Dash swore under her breath as she reached for the sidearm that she had picked from the rack back in the hospital while crouching behind the couch where Fluttershy was sleeping. “Fluttershy wake up we’ve got trouble!” Dash shouted to her companion who snapped awake with surprising ease.

“Who and how many?” Fluttershy asked quietly as she hunkered down behind the couch with Dash while she also reached for a sidearm.

“Griffins again, around ten.” Dash replied tersely as she surveyed the griffins through the library windows. The lead griffin approached the front door and tried the knob, but it was locked, the griffin shrugged before he contemptuously kicked it in with a hind leg.

“Spread out, we’re under orders to take them alive!" The lead griffin said with a squawk, which was odd because usually griffins talk like any other pony. Dash signaled to Fluttershy and whispered.

“On three…one….two…three!” the both leapt to their hooves and let out a brutal amount of fire at the incoming griffins, Dash’s shot completely decapitated the lead griffin while Fluttershy took down another two. Blood stained the library floor as the other griffins tried to enter the building causing the first to slip and be cut down by Dash’s Carnifex. Then a small metallic object was thrown into the center of the room where it landed with a quite thud, Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other in confusion. Suddenly the small object let out an incredibly bright flash that caused both of them to become momentarily blind and a loud sound that almost popped their eardrums. Shoot you idiot they’re going to use this to gain ground! Shika yelled inside Dash’s head causing her to regain her senses and look up in time to see a griffin clear the doorway, she slowly brought her Carnifex up and fired a shot into the griffin’s stomach causing him to fly back into his buddies.

“You’ll come out if you know what’s good for you!” Yelled a griffin from outside

“Not happening featherhead, why don’t you come in and get us!” Dash called back as she readied her Carnifex for another shot.

“Because if you don’t we’ll burn down this entire town then we’ll rape everypony to death before we skin you and cook you on a spit over an open fire!” called the griffin, Dash’s blood ran cold at the threat, but before she could do anything a familiar feminine voice from outside said.

“I think not darlings, say have you met Tom?” there was a loud crash followed by a series of bonecrushing crunches before Rarity called. “Come on out darlings I don’t think that they’ll be hurting anypony again.” Dash and Fluttershy exchanged nervous glances before they walked out the door and into the sunlight to discover Rarity casually wiping blood and feathers from hooves with a small handkerchief.

“Rarity what happened to the griffins?” Fluttershy asked her.

“Oh those brutes well Tom didn’t like them threatening his town so he decided to have a civil discussion with them…” she then pointed to the large splatters of bones and internal organs that were lying around the outside of the library, one of which had Tom sitting nonchalantly on top of it. “…oddly they weren’t very receptive.”

“Rarity how…?” Dash asked her, she was at a loss for words.

“Well it was a simple application of magical force really, kind of like bowling but with much stupider pins.” Rarity told them “oh but now Tom’s all dirty, I simply must get him home to be washed up, I’ll see you at Shepard’s.” She walked away humming s cheery tune while she carried Tom next to her with magic.

“Fluttershy…” Dash said turning to her mare-friend “...have I mentioned before that we have really weird friends?”

Mind games

Discord really was enjoying himself; the volcanoes erupting in the background are a nice touchhe thought to himself as he surveyed the battlefield before him. Arrayed against him was a vast horde of enemies who had somehow gained access to his prison.They really lack common sense coming in here, I’m a god of chaos do they really think that they can subdue me inside my own mind?Next to him stood his faithful student in the ways of chaos, her name was Screwball and Celestia had given him leave to invite her inside his head to help fend off the Cerberus troops who seemed so eager to throw their lives away. With an errant thought he turned the ground underneath an approaching group into boiling chocolate and listened with delight as they died screaming in pain as the chocolate seeped into their pores, being evil really had its perks.

“My turn Master Discord? Screwball asked excitedly bouncing up and down in excitement like a puppy; Discord favored her with a delighted look before he said.

“Why yes I do believe it is my dear, do please go ahead.” With an ecstatic shout Screwball turned the rocks surrounding the approaching Cerberus troops into tiny grenades, which exploded in large pink explosions throwing acid based cotton candy in all directions. “That was well done my student; the fact that it dissolves them slowly enough for them to watch is a nice touch.” Screwball practically glowed with happiness. Discord extend his hand and asked “Shall we?” Screwball took his hand in her hoof and together they walked into the enemy formations. Once they entered Discord began to sing, a thumping bass came on in the background.

Oh look at all of you who believe that you have power
Well how do like this molten chocolate shower

Immediately the soldiers around him were drenched in burning chocolate falling from large black clouds. They writhed on the ground as the chocolate burned through their skin leaving long black sores in its wake.

Frankly you have around the strength of a kitty
And what I’m going to do to you won’t be pretty
So I suggest leaving my domain
Otherwise it will be your heads decorating my doorframe

As he sang he cheerfully decapitated ten of the Cerberus troops with one hand just to make clear his point, oddly it didn’t seem to take.

Yet you march on like ants to the slaughter
Well let’s see how you like dying of laughter

A purple gas began to seep up from under the ground among the ranks of the Cerberus troops causing any who breathed it in to fall over on the ground laughing hysterically until they died of asphyxiation. He really needed to thank the clown for that one.

I’ve reached a foregone conclusion
Thanks to your own stupidity you won’t back down from this intrusion

Before he could sing another verse Screwball tapped him on the shoulder and respectfully asked if she could sing a verse or two, Discord nodded and she broke into song. Her tune was much harsher then that of her master’s almost as if she were trying to chew into the enemy with her words.

You are all such fools
To believe yourselves to be anything but tools
his is the mind of Discord
So I suggest you be wary of falling harpsichords

On cue the five suns of Discord’s mind were blotted out by an onslaught of harpsichords which fell to earth at incredible speed killing dozens of soldiers indiscriminately. Discord nodded his head in approval and motioned for her to carry on.

What is most apparent
Is that you’re far too complacent
Killing you makes me wish I was imprisoned in stone
At least then I would have the opportunity to atone
Instead I have you to deal with you
I wonder if you would like some eels to teach you to count to two, no better yet they’ll make you blue

Out of thin air hundreds of green eels who sprouted wings and wrapped themselves around the throats of the Cerberus troopers who struggled pathetically to remove their tormentors.She really has improved; her control is impeccable Discord thought as he watched the Cerberus troops struggle feebly.

Do you know what’s more
You haven’t witnessed all that we have in store
Cats can be bats can be rats can be hats can be gnats
You know I do feel the urge for a baseball bat

A large blade covered baseball bat appeared and she took it up eagerly before running into the enemy with reckless abandon leaving a long trail of bloody broken bodies behind her. It wouldn’t have worked if she wasn’t in his mind, but he suspected that she knew that which is why she was taking the opportunity to enjoy herself. To amuse himself in-between lyrics he decided to do a little dance, suddenly a trooper actually got close enough to him to actually hit him with a shot of his gun. It bounced off of course, but it was quite annoying all the same. In his deepest best guard’s voice he leaned down to talk to the offending trooper and said.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown off the emperor’s groove.” The offending trooper was sent flying onto the air where he was quickly shot by several of his floating jellyfish. “Emperor of Chaos and Disharmony that is.” He said to another trooper who he also sent flying for good measure, after all he was an equal opportunity kind of guy and didn’t want to see anypony feel left out. Screwball walked up behind him after getting bored with her giant bat which she had left sticking out of a Cerberus trooper’s head. “Did you have fun?” Discord asked her.

“Yeah but there are so many of them, I don’t think I can create enough inventive ways to kill them all without being repetitive.” Screwball said with a regretful look that broke a little piece of Discord’s heart.

“Fear not my faithful student we have millions if not trillions of ways to end their pathetic lives.” Discord told her bringing a smile back to the mare’s face before they once more stepped forth into the fray.

***

Celestia woke up and groaned, the sun was still up, now that her sister was at the very least conscious Celestia could return to her habit of sleeping through the day. Her guards had been wondering about it one day after Luna’s restoration thanks to the Elements of Harmony, smiling she had told them. Every time somepony said her name she became instantly aware of it and the situation around whoever had uttered her name, which made sleeping at night extremely hard, she let that sink in. The guards had blushed and asked if they could be excused, Celestia had just nodded sagely and smiled. Now though she accepted the fact she wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep for the day and pulled herself out of bed and walked down to the main dining hall to discover what the cooks had to spare.

“Princess Celestia I have awful news!” cried a messenger who was running towards her as she came out of the dining.

“What is it?” she asked concern coloring her voice

“Ponyville has been the sight of a massive attack; there are apparently several hundred enemy troops surrounding it and for the most part the inhabitants are defenseless against such an assault!” Celestia was shocked, who had thought that Ponyvill of all places required several hundred troops to overwhelm?

“How recent is this news?” Celestia asked the messenger.

“It is approximately one hour old your majesty.” The messenger replied

“Thank you take the rest of the day off, I need to talk to my commanders about this situation.” The messenger hurried away, Celestia sighed so much for trying to get back to sleep, now she had an actual war to fight.

AN
I don’t actually know much about Screwball so I hope you like my interpretation. In other news who’s up for the battle of Ponyville

The pre battle of Ponyville

Shepard and company ran down the streets of Ponyville their weapons at the ready. A griffin jumped out of a shadow and Shepard shot it in the head without thinking sending it sprawling. To Shepard’s great surprise the citizens of Ponyville were not panicking, instead they were calmly staying inside their houses and when the occasional griffin tried to gain entry he would be sent flying from a buck to the face. Unfortunately the griffin army begin employed by Cerberus was huge; Shepard and his crew had already killed several dozen but more just showed up immediately to take their place.

“Shepard we need to head for Main Square, if we can fortify that position they’ll never take the town!” Twilight called to him as she sent streaks of fire out to scorch a group of griffins angling in from above. Shepard nodded and changed course towards the town’s central square. It took ten minutes of heavy fighting before they got there but what met their eyes was nothing like they’d been expecting. All sides of the main square were enclosed in a large metal wall, along which stood ponies who were armed with unexpectedly advanced weaponry.

“State your business or we will open fire!” yelled one of them before another smacked him on the head and called down

“Sorry he’s knew, we’re opening one of the smaller gates for you, when you get in look for General Lyra.” That sent Twilight reeling in confusion.

“General Lyra, when did Lyra become a General of anything?” Twilight asked confusedly “The only thing she ever does is talk about humans.” As they walked through the small door which was opened for them a strange sight greeted their eyes. The center of Ponyville had been transformed into a military camp with green tents, quanza huts and even a small firing range.“What…the…BUCK!” Twilight whispered to herself, she’d never seen this kind of thing in Canterlot let alone Ponyville. Out of the controlled chaos of the encampment strolled a mint colored unicorn wearing a military jacket and a small cap.

“Commander Shepard it’s a pleasure to meet you my name is General Lyra, but you can call me Lyra.” Said Lyra as she walked forward “As you can see Commander I have the center of Ponyville secured but besides that I don’t have enough experienced troops to gain any ground.”

“Lyra what the buck, when did you become ‘General Lyra’?” Twilight asked incredulously, Lyra smiled and replied.

“Before I came here to Ponyville I served several years in the royal guard and I graduated top of my class from West Hoof military academy, before going on to fight several successive campaigns against both the Zebras and the Griffins. You didn’t think that I was just a weird pony obsessed with humans did you?” The smile on her face as Twilight’s look of shock grew larger and larger.

“But, what, how, but…” Twilight trailed off, the day was already too crazy for her to worry about this. “Ok so what’s the plan General?” she asked after she was done hyperventilating.

“Well as I said we have this square secure but lack the pony power to push any farther, so I’ve devised a simple stratagem that should allow us to at least gain back a few more blocks and hold onto them before the Princess arrives with the might of the Royal Army behind her.” Shepard looked at her skeptically.

“And that would be?” he asked her raising an eyebrow.

“We send you and your group to secure the Cake’s shop and then I decide on another course of action once we’ve achieved that objective.” Lyra told him, Shepard sighed it wasn’t a very complex strategy, but it still better than anything that he’d thought of up till this point.

“Lyra I have a question.” Twilight said, Lyra nodded for her to continue “why is it that after all of the other disasters that have befallen Ponyville that this is the first time that you’ve done this?” Twilight asked

“Well honestly because it hasn’t been necessary up to this point, thanks to you and your friends my assistance hasn’t been needed.” Lyra answered easily causing Twilight to scowl “Besides I doubt that you would have taken my help in the first place, what with me being the idiot who drags her marefriend off into Everfree to look for humans.” Lyra favored her with an ironic smile.

“You played the entire town?” Twilight said in astonishment.

“No I really am obsessed with humans and finding a live one is my dream, I just have…let’s call them hidden depths.” Lyra replied with a small grin.

“Have you seen any of my friends?” Twilight asked her Lyra nodded “Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity are in your library and scouts sighted Apple Jack approaching from her farm with her family in tow. Luckily none of her cousins are in town I shudder to think about having to feed all of them.” Lyra said before she trotted away to see what Bon Bon needed.

“So Lyra is obsessed with humans…that’s interesting, wouldn’t you say Shepard?” Garrus asked him.

“Garrus remember our chat about drinking at the gates of heaven?”

“Yeah…”

“Well if you don’t kill that train of thought you’ll be there waiting for me a lot longer.” Shepard told him causing Garrus to laugh then Shepard turned serious and began to pace back and forth, all of his crew knew what was coming but Twilight was mystified. “We came here as guests and the ponies of this town offered us a new home and their hospitality without question. These griffins are here to kill them or cart them off to slavery for some dark and unknown purpose. I will not stand for it, these griffins believe that ponies are weak; these griffins think that we are weak, are we going to accept that? Buck no we aren’t, we’re going to personally see to it that the griffins remember this day as the day that Commander Ethan Shepard and his valiant crew repulsed their assault on Ponyville. When the few survivors talk about this day make sure that they have to look over their shoulders in fear that one of us has snuck up on them, now let’s get out there and kick some flank!” his crew and several of the surrounding ponies broke into wild cheers, Twilight turned to Tali and quietly whispered.

“Does he always make dramatic speeches?” Tali nodded silently while Dash tackled Twilight into a hug and Rarity and Fluttershy followed at arriving for the hug a few seconds later. “Are you girls ok?” Twilight asked them worriedly.

“We had a slight scuffle with a few of the brutes but nothing that Tom and I couldn’t take care of.” Rarity told Twilight and got a mystified look in response.

“How did Tom help?”

“He made a very convincing argument that crushed the griffins’ brains under its complexity.” Rarity replied.

“Actually she threw Tom on them, but I guess if she wants to say it like that it’s up to her.” Dash said. “So what’s our plan I heard cheering?”

“Our group is basically going to go out kill everything in sight and then hold out for reinforcements.” Dash nodded to herself.

“Sounds like a good plan to me!” Dash told her unclipping her rifle and walking over towards Shepard.

“Alright I want this clean and by the books, we go out, kill everything that looks like a griffin then we hold as much ground as we can and hold out for reinforcements, any questions?” Shepard told his group once they were assembled in front of him, nopony said anything so Shepard nodded and led them towards the exit which would be opened just long enough for his group to exit. As they stepped out they found the streets of Ponyville deathly quiet you could have heard a feather hit the ground. The clouds overhead seemed to be moving in odd unnatural movements and the wind blew through without a sound ruffling Shepard’s mane. The very air itself seems to be holding it’s breath waiting, and watching.

“Kind of makes you think that any second now a group of griffins are going to jump out of a side street doesn’t it Commander?” Said Garrus jovially completely ruining the atmosphere, Shepard chuckled.

“Alright ponies let’s move, watch out for snipers or griffins hiding out of sight.” Shepard told his group and they set of down the street with the streaks of the setting sun at their backs.

AN
Yes I am evil, in other less obvious news I just want to tell you guys that I made the bonus chapter The Best Party Ever its own story and added another chapter

Pop

They walked down the silent streets of Ponyville each scanning in a certain direction looking for any source of trouble, disturbingly they found no trouble. Five minutes of walking later they still hadn’t spotted anything that looked remotely threatening. Garrus started to whistle a happy tune to himself and the others soon started to hum along, it was probably the only thing keeping them from dreading the unknown shadows all around them.

“In case anyone hasn’t guessed at this point we’re walking into a trap.” Shepard told his group who nodded silently in affirmation; they had figured it out two minutes before Shepard told them.

“Shepard wouldn’t it be nice if we…” Garrus was interrupted by a large explosion that tore a huge gash in the ground in front of them throwing Shepard and his group backwards. Out of the surrounding buildings emerged around fifty griffins, all of whom had their weapons raised and were pointing them at Shepard and his team. As the dust cleared completely a new griffin emerged, his eyes were covered by a plate that ran across them and his face was further obscured by metal. His feathers were jet black and at his side rested a sword and scabbard.

“I’ve been waiting for this Shepard!” The griffin said in a tone that perfectly matched Kai Leng’s, as he said it he drew the sword, it was covered in dried blood, Fluttershy let out a low growl.

“He did it, he’s the one who killed my animals, he matches Angle’s description…I’ll kill him!” Although she said it quietly the menace in her voice was clear and even Dash took a step back, Fluttershy radiated pure outrage and hatred.

“So we all run towards the hole in the ground that they were nice enough to blast open for us?” Tali asked Shepard.

“No they’re at too good of a position to try that with, we hit them hard throw up a smoke screen of some kind then we head for the nearest unoccupied house.” Shepard replied.

“You are probably thinking of running towards that hole that I blasted in the ground for you aren’t you?” Leng asked sardonically “well I wouldn’t do that if I were yo…” he was suddenly interrupted by Garrus who had shot a sniper bullet clean through his shoulder.

“Talking isn’t a free action Leng!” Garrus yelled over his shoulder as he Shepard and the rest ran towards the closest house where they set quickly set up a defensive position. Tali, Applejack and Fluttershy took the bottom floor leaving the top floor to everypony else.

“This is going to really be a case of defense isn’t it Shepard?” Garrus asked, Shepard nodded, meanwhile Leng had apparently already recovered from his bullet to the shoulder because he strutted to the front of the house and yelled.

“This isn’t over Shepard I’ll kill you!”

“Tut tut” Garrus said to Shepard before springing up and firing another shot into Leng’s shoulder.

“That was the same spot wasn’t it” Shepard said, Garrus nodded with a smile.

***

“They’re doing what!” Miranda yelled.

“They’re leading a direct attack on Ponyville which is being directed by Leng.” Anderson told her quietly.

“This is something that I cannot allow, to many innocents have already died in this game, not another pony will die without just cause!” Thane said rising from the table slowly and putting on his jacket while making sure that his pistols were ready and his trusty sniper was attached securely to his back.

“Thane no, you can’t if you do you’ll jeopardize the entire plan!” Miranda said, Thane gazed at her with his black eyes which were the only part of him that hadn’t changed when he had died before he steadily said.

“Your plan is in ruins, The Illusive Man has mobilized his army, Celestia will take the field in defense of her town. The mind of Discord has not yet been stabilized, Luna is still in near critical condition, and Shepard has no way to stop any of it without outside help. The time for action is NOW!” with that Thane headed for the door, giving them all a curt nod before he departed.

“I need to get back to Celestia; ‘Arsenal’ would be next to her.” Anderson said before he walked out of the room leaving Legion, Kaidan, Miranda, and Mordin looking at each other.

“If Shepard Commander dies then this struggle becomes pointless, I am going to prevent that.” Legion left, and then there were three.

“You probably expect me to go charging out there, don’t you Miranda?” Kaidan asked her, a small tight smile on his face.

“Are you?” she asked her voice was strangely hesitant, as if she didn’t know what to do, Kaidan shook his head.

“I’m going to stay here and make sure that neither you or Mordin come to any harm.” His voice was layered in steel and his eyes were hard.

“A nice sentiment but hardly necessary, unless we’ve made an astronomical lapse in judgment the enemy lacks this location...but we are happy all the same.” Mordin told him breathlessly before turning to Miranda “I will redouble my efforts to invent a way of stopping The Illusive Man, until that success I ask not to be disturbed.” Mordin turned his back on the two others at the table and strode purposely through the door to his lab. Miranda and Kaidan stared at each other for a long time from across the table before Kaidan got up to sit next to her.

***

“Garrus get some fire on those assault troops that are trying to flank us from the west!” Shepard yelled as he fired off a shockwave into a formation of griffins approaching from the front. The quick reply of Garrus’s sniper put a small smile on Shepard’s face “Tali send out a combat drone into that group on the right!” Tali sent out her drone which tore a small bloody hole through the enemy griffins. Rainbow Dash flew by several dozen griffins followed in hot pursuit but Dash twisted and she hovered in mid air for a second before opening up with her vindicator as the griffins swept past her unable to match her aerial acrobatics. Next to him Twilight sent out a concentrated blast of magic into an approaching group sending them flying backwards into several buildings where they burst into cold flame. Shepard’s Carnifex fired out a burst of shots each one ending in a perfect head shot, but Shepard knew that there were too many for them to effectively hold off forever.

“Shepard we can’t last much longer I’m down to my last application of medigel!” Ash yelled from behind him, Shepard nodded he was down to his last medigel to.

“We need a fallback position, any ideas?” Shepard called it was Rarity who answered.

“My boutique is just a block away if Dash can provide covering fire I’m confident that we could make it there without casualties, plus it would give me access to Tom.”

“Who’s Tom?” Ash yelled to Twilight.

“You don’t want to know!” Twilight replied with certainty as she let loose another blast of magic.

“Alright ponies we’re moving to Rarity’s boutique we move in three minutes so get ready!” Shepard shouted.

“Rarity what about your sister?” Twilight asked in slight distress.

“She’s at school; I don’t know anypony I trust more than Cheerilee to keep her safe!”Rarity replied as her tempest submachine gun sent out a large stream of bullets. They met in the ground floor two minutes later and prepared to make a break for the back door while Tali kept the griffins from gaining the front door with the help of her drones and her shotgun. Once they were all moving the griffins began to catch on and started to try and flank them by flying over the buildings, thankfully Dash was on duty and they got shot down before they could get much farther. They burst into the boutique and sealed the door behind them before taking up firing positions at the windows.

“You think that this changes anything you are all just rats that I have yet to extermin…” Leng was going to get farther but he apparently hadn’t learned his lesson yet because Garrus sent another shot right through his shoulder.

“You would think that after two he would have learned.” Garrus said while shaking his head in disgust.

“I remember him being much smarter than this, I wonder what happened.” Shepard replied as he shot another griffin.

“I’m guessing that his trip here wasn’t as nice as ours and that his brain came out a little worse thanks to it.” Tali called.

“Whatever the reason I’m happy that it happened.” Shepard called back. The enemy started to march towards the boutique in silent determination firing off shots as they came; apparently they had finally noticed that Shepard’s group didn’t have enough firepower to kill them all. “They’re going to try the brute force approach everypony get ready!” Shepard called as he launched several into the air with a shockwave. Off of a building a black blur speed appeared and began to run through the enemy ranks. Where it passed the enemy fell to the ground with an assortment of injuries, the most notable were the ones whose necks were broken. As the blur got closer Shepard recognized a familiar leather jacket and he smiled a grin smile, it was time to finally meet the pony in the leather jacket. With a final acrobatic leap the pony in the jacket leapt through the broken window and landed with a graceful roll, the others were staring in open mouth amazement before Shepard directed them back to killing the griffins.

“Shepard, it’s been a long time.” The pony in the jacket said simply as he looked up to meet Shepard’s eyes, Shepard stared. The pony had just talked in Thane’s voice and his eyes were the exact shade of black as Thane’s.

“Thane?” Shepard asked a little uncertain.

“Of course Shepard, you didn’t think that I’d let a little thing like dying stop me, did you?” Thane gave him an ironic smile.

“But if you’re you, then Arsenal has to be Anderson!” Shepard exclaimed Thane nodded.

“We can reintroduce everypony later; right now we have griffins to kill.” Thane said simply as he unhooked his rifle and sent three griffins flying with one bullet. “I love the widow” Thane said simply. The griffins poured forward squawking battle cries as they came even with Thane’s added firepower Shepard’s group didn’t have enough ponies to hold off the griffins completely and they soon found themselves bunkered down on the second floor.

“Even with Krios among you, you can’t hope to hold out against the might of Cerber…” this time Leng was cut off by both Thane and Garrus’s bullets they preceded to hoofbump. Unfortunately the griffins kept pouring in through the first floor door and windows, providing easy targets and jamming the too spaces, but they still had more than enough reserves to shrug off the casualties. Shepard’s mind had stopped working on any level higher then shoot griffin in the face, when suddenly a new voice entered the fray.

“Shepard Commander where would you like me?” Shepard turned around to find a silver colored pegasus holding an iconic widow sniper in his hooves.

“Legion?” Shepard asked, Legion nodded an affirmative “Alright go with Garrus and Thane so you can provide covering fire.” Legion nodded and headed off towards the position, before stopping halfway and saying.

“It is an honor to serve with you again Shepard Commander.” Shepard acknowledged with a quick nod before turning back to the battle going on around him. Leng finally made a real appearance; he strode into the room and under the cover of a powerful shield and opened up with an incredibly powerful assault rifle sending everypony diving for cover, except Fluttershy. She stood directly in his path her eyes burning with fiery vengeance.

“My name is Fluttershy, you killed my animals, prepare to die!” She said it very calmly before she reached for a sword that was hanging at her side, Shepard couldn’t believe that he’d missed it before. Leng started to laugh, he held up a talon and the other griffins stopped their approach and quitted respectfully. Fluttershy was using what appeared to be a straight bladed bastard sword which gave her a perfect balance of offense and defense, Leng was of course using a katana. The two combatants charged each other in a flurry of sparks and steel, Fluttershy started with a quick uppercut which Leng blocked contemptibly before he responded with a lightning fast down stroke. Fluttershy ducked underneath it and unleashed a powerful side cut which Leng blocked sending sparks flying as their swords met. Leng sprang on the offensive and began a pattern of high and low cuts ultimately terminating in a blow meant to behead Fluttershy; she barely moved her head in time and received a long bloody cut across the side of her face. Dash tried to go to her but Shepard grabbed her.

“This is her fight let her finish it.” Shepard told her quietly so as not to disturb Fluttershy’s concentration. Even with her face bleeding Fluttershy pressed onto the assault, the two blades clanged and smashed against each other with the speed of greased lightning until Fluttershy saw and opening and delivered a powerful cut to her enemy’s chest leaving a bloody gash among the black feathers. This only caused Leng to chuckle lightly as the wound began to close right before their eyes. Leng then sprang forward brining his katana scything downward towards Fluttershy’s head; Fluttershy rolled forward underneath the cut and brought her blade up so that it made a large cut through Leng’s stomach. Leng stood their panting for several seconds before his stomach reknitted itself and he was ready to begin again.

“Foolish yellow pony you believe that you can stop a mighty swordsman like me well I’ll show you the error of your wa…”

“Shut up and DIE!” Fluttershy yelled as she decapitated Leng sending his head flying into the crowd of griffins waiting around her.

“Twilight get her up here now!” Shepard yelled Twilight complied half a second after Fluttershy appeared next to her the spot that she’d been standing was riddled with bullet holes. The Cerberus troops looked up at Shepard’s group with hate in their eyes and they began to advance very slowly towards the stairs. Great horns began to blow outside as if sounding the approach of a coming storm. The Cerberus troops turned around and found themselves starring down the barrels of the Royal Army, at its head stood Princess Celestia resplendent in armor that looked to be wreathed in golden fire.

“YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!” She yelled before she sent out a great inferno that swept away the Cerberus troops in a storm of flames. Inside Dash’s head Shika spoke up for the first time since the beginning of the battle not bad but my queen could have kicked her flanks straight into the sun. Dash told her to shut up before she rushed over to Fluttershy who was lying next to Twilight who was applying a large pack of medigel to the long cut going across her face. Unfortunately Celestia had missed one sniper trooped who was stationed on top of a nearby building; he was taking careful aim at Celestia’s head. He heard a slight popping sound from behind him and he turned to be confronted by a bright pink pony holding a shotgun and aiming it directly at his head.

“Alright you primitive screwhead you see this?” She pointed at her shotgun, the Cerberus trooper nodded in dumbfounded disbelief. “This is my BOOMSTICK!” Pinkie yelled as she blew a hole straight through the Cerberus troopers head.

AN

Consider this the halfway point

Recovery

Yes this chapter is mostly just character development, get over it

Shepard sat at the table of the housing complex that Pinkie had created for them, directly across from him sat Anderson, on Anderson’s left sat Legion, on his right sat Thane. The rest of Shepard’s crew was in attendance but none of them were sitting at the table. This meeting was primarily between Shepard and his formerly fallen friends, and the rest of the crew knew it.

“So how many of my friends who died are here in Equestria?” Shepard asked Anderson quietly.

“Mordin, Miranda, and Kaidan are here along with the three of us Shepard, if there are any others we don’t know about them.” Anderson said.

“Why didn’t you come to me sooner, we could have saved a lot of time running around in circles if you had just come and found me immediately?” Shepard asked Anderson his face was set in a slight grimace.

“Because Shepard we had a plan, we were going to keep helping you mysteriously until it was prudent to reveal ourselves. Unfortunately the Illusive Man stepped up his game plan and the only way to keep you alive was for us to reveal ourselves.” Anderson told Shepard apologetically.

“I understand, I just wish it hadn’t been necessary.” Shepard said rubbing a hoof through his hair “I don’t really like being manipulated.” Anderson nodded, the sense of vast importance had passed and the rest of the crew came over to reintroduce themselves to the new arrivals.

“Legion, why do you have a blue flashlight as your cutimark?” Ash asked Legion with a large smile on her face, Legion stared at her.

“Because it is there, why is yours a book?” Legion replied simply Ash raised an eyebrow this was going to be interesting.

***

Dash was looking for Fluttershy everywhere, she’d checked in the med area that Lyra had set up, she’d checked in Twilight’s library, now she only had one place left to look. She alighted outside of Fluttershy’s house noiselessly, and noticed that the front lawn was covered in small graves. Each grave was decorated with a tiny tombstone displaying an image of the creature that had been buried underneath it. From in the house she heard the sound of soft crying, steeling herself for whatever she would find Dash opened the door and stepped inside the small house. Angel was patrolling the main room apparently thrown out of his mistress’s room, he saluted Dash and went back to looking out for trouble, Dash returned the salute and slowly flew up the stairs till she was right outside of Fluttershy’s door. Dash knocked but didn’t get an answer although the crying continued, without hesitating a moment longer Dash entered the room.

Lying on her bed was Fluttershy; her mane was messy and in a state of terrible disarray, her eyes were red and puffy from crying. When she saw Dash she buried her head in her pillow and cried.

“Go away! I know you hate me now you don’t have to rub it in anymore!” Dash was confounded.

“Fluttershy what are you talking about?” Dash asked softly doing her best not to frighten her marefriend.

“I said go away Dashie! I’m a monster who doesn’t deserve to live and I don’t need you around to taunt me!” Dash’s head was spinning, what was Fluttershy talking about? Inside her head she heard Shika sigh before she said She’s guilty about the fact that she killed that man in vengeance, and now she thinks that you think that she’s a bloodthirsty monster, really Dash it’s obvious.Dash nodded in understanding. Thanks Shika she said in her mind before turning back to Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy I’m not mad at you, and I’m not afraid that you’re a blood thirsty monster, you’re perfect the just the way you are.” Fluttershy looked up from her pillow and sniffled.

“Really Dashie?” she asked in a voice that broke Dash’s heart.

“Of course Fluttershy I’ll always love you, and the fact that you’re an incredible swordsmare just makes you twenty percent more awesome.” Dash told her marefriend as she sat down next to her and wrapped her for legs around Fluttershy.

“But…but I’ve been transformed into a remorseless killer?” Fluttershy stuttered.

“Fluttershy you’re currently sitting on your bed crying your eyes out because you killed a heartless killer in an awesome way, I don’t think that you’re remorseless. Which reminds me, where did you learn how to sword fight?” Dash asked awe in her voice, Fluttershy stopped crying and looked at Dash.

“Well it’s always been a hobby, but being a Paladin apparently made me much better at it then I’ve ever been before. What are we going to do now Dash?”

“That’s up to you Fluttershy, although, we are already on your bed…”

***

“Twilight is it just me or have we not had an actual chance to talk to each other since Shepard came to town?” Spike asked Twilight as he helped her mop caked blood off of the floor of the library.

“I know what you mean Spike, it seems that I just can’t have conversations with all of my friends anymore, once this war is over I’ll have the chance to reconnect with everypony.”

“So where’s Celestia? I know that she’s around here somewhere and I need to talk to her about how to raise Peewee, the guys getting big.” Spike said as the phoenix alighted on his shoulder before sneezing out a small jet of flame.

“Be careful with him please Spike, the last thing I need to have happen to me is to come home to find a smoking crater where my house used to be.” Twilight told spike before she ran a hoof over the phoenix’s head.

“Don’t worry Twilight he knows about that sort of thing, it’s mostly stuff about life cycles and main food source that I’m worried about. He doesn’t like his bird feed anymore and I need to know if he eats primarily meat.” Spike said scratching the bird under his chin.

“I’ll see what she says Spike, now I have to get going AJ said something about a meeting with Rarity and I don’t want to be late.” Twilight sped out the door leaving Spike behind absently scratching Peewee.

Twilight met her friends outside of Sugarcube Corner and they began to walk towards AJ’s farm.

“So what happened to you during the battle AJ, the last thing that we heard was that you were bringing the rest of your family to Lyra’s command center?” Twilight asked her orange friend.

“We were on our way in when Celestia swept through, she sent two guards to make sure that we got to the command center safely. Other than that nothin important happened.”

“So then would you kindly explain the purpose behind this meeting AJ? My sister is distraught in the wake of the battle and needs me to lend a comforting hoof?” Rarity asked AJ in impatience.

“Well ya see I’ve been thinkn that something’s a little off about Shepard, now I’m not sayin that he’s lied to us, but I still think that somethins off.” AJ said.

“What do you mean by ‘off’ AJ?” Twilight asked her friend in concern.

“Well he’s just so emotionless about all the killin that we’ve been doin lately, it’s unnatural is what it is.” Jas said, her voice lowered “He’s even turned Fluttershy in ta a coldblooded killer, there aint no way that that’s normal.” Twilight sighed.

“AJ Shepard was a soldier before he came here, so were the rest of his crew, did you miss that conversation somehow? As for Fluttershy that’s Celestia’s fault for granting her Paladinship which allows her to put most of her emotions on hold until it’s a good time to let them out, which I’m guessing is now.” Twilight told her friend in annoyance, she could have sworn that she went over all of this a while ago.

“If that’s all that this was about darling I have to get home and help Sweetie Belle.” Rarity said before she ran off towards her house, which had been magically rebuilt and cleaned after the fight.

“I still don’t know how the rest of yall can stand all the killin, I can do it, but I don’t like it.” AJ said firmly, Twilight looked at her sadly.

“None of us like it, well except probably Dash, but still it has to be done.” Twilight walked back towards Lyra’s fortifications to see if she could find Celestia.

***

“We really shouldn’t have done this here Kaidan.” Miranda said as she poured herself a glass of water.

“Don’t worry no one will know.” Kaidan replied easily looking admiringly at Miranda’s flanks.

“Except of course the ex-salarian scientist whose work you disturbed with your sex of course.” Mordin said as he walked into the room, Kaidan and Miranda both blushed. “Don’t worry I’m not mad, the sexual tension between the two of you was beginning to drive me crazy, was going to suggest that you hurry up and get it over with.” Mordin said breathlessly as he walked over and poured himself a cup of coffee, he smiled as he saw the looks on their faces and took a sip.

***

“So that was the first Cerberus assault on my domain, I think that we handled it quite well don’t you think Screwball?” Discord asked his apprentice who nodded enthusiastically

“It was fun Master; I bet they’ll think twice before trying to take control of your mind again.” She gestured at the thousands of charred, broken, melted, air blasted, chocolate coated, cotton candy smeared, bone removed, oxygen deprived, gamma irradiated, mutated, hole filled, bloodless bodies spread around on the flat plain where Discord had chosen for the battle to take place on. Discord nodded as he absentmindedly began moving the bodies over to one of the nearby volcanoes.

“I wonder how things went on Tia’s end.”

***

“Princess Celestia the battle went far better than expected, after you incinerated the large portion of their army the moment that you arrived. The rest put up just enough fight for us to take a few casualties, but other than that we got off for the most part scot free.” Arsenal told her as he looked over a status report that had come from the infirmary. Celestia sighed in relief.

“That’s good news; I was worried about how well the army would do after our rapid arrival.” Celestia said her eyes wandering around the small command center. “General Lyra I must commend you for your exemplary thinking and strategy, this is truly a job well done, and another feather in you cap.” Lyra bowed graciously.

“Thank you Princess, I would have been able to offer more assistance if there were more ponies in this town who actually know how to fight. The rest did fine but having experienced soldiers is always better than having civilians who barely know which end of a gun you hold. Even so they did alright.” Lyra told the Princess, placing a mild suggestion in her voice. Celestia laughed.

“Yes I’ll leave some of my veterans here to help you defend Ponyville, I planned on it anyways.” Lyra let out a relived sigh before she turned to Bon Bon.

“Anything new to report Commander Bon Bon?” Bon Bon shook her head

“Nothing new Ma’am, but Twilight Sparkle would like to speak with Celestia privately.” Lyra nodded and followed Bon Bon out of the tent, when they were outside of Celestia’s earshot Bon Bon whispered “How about we go over the new reports in my room General” Lyra smiled, it was a good day.

“Princess Celestia it’s good to see you again.” Twilight began.

“So what did you want to talk about Twilight?” Celestia asked skipping the formalities, Twilight caught on quickly.

“Well three things really, if you recall Spike has a phoenix of his own now, and he wants to know what to feed it.” Twilight began with the lightest subject.

“Tell him to let it hunt for itself, they always come back.” Celestia answered easily, Twilight nodded “next?”

“What really happened to Luna, and how did she get better?” Celestia looked down uncomfortably for a second before answering.

“Her mind was literally torn apart by some unknown power; I enlisted Discord’s help bringing her back from the brink of being a vegetable.” Twilight looked at her mentor in shock.

“You used Discord, but Celestia how could you after everything that he’s done?” Celestia stared at Twilight.

“Without Discord my sister would now be a pawn for the enemy to use as they pleased. I don’t like it any more than you do, but if there’s one thing that that draconequus knows about better than I do it’s minds.” Twilight thought about it before shrugging, that problem would have to wait.

“My third question is have you ever seen this book before?” she floated ‘When dealing with mysterious Enemies’ over to Celestia who looked at it before drawing in a deep apprehensive breath.

“Twilight this is a transdimensional guide book, where could you possibly have gotten this?”

“Pinkie” Twilight said simply, Celestia sighed and returned the book to Twilight.

“I should’ve guessed, keep that safe, what you hold is probably one of the most voluble magical objects in this dimension.” Twilight nodded and left, Celestia watched her student retreat into the distance before she got back to the work of planning the next phase of the operation.

Interlude

Pinkie paced back and forth back and forth, then sideways for good measure before finally turning to make her speech to the captivated audience whose story she had rudely interrupted.

“Shepard’s Adventure is going well and is in no means canceled or put on hiatus…but there is a slight problem.” She looked at the audience making sure that they were giving her their full attention before she continued. “That problem is that Shepard cannot have a truly harrowing adventure with the five of my friends plus even three of his own teammates, there are simply too many ponies who can’t die in one place at one time.” She paused dramatically fixing the audience with a stare “You know it’s true, and I know it’s true, unless every chapter is going to be treated as a giant unoriginal battle Shepard’s party has to be split up, as do my friends. You have the power to chose who Shepard’s companions for the remaining half of this first adventure are going to be. Three of my friends, not including myself of course, and three of Shepard’s crew will be chosen by all of you to join Shepard for the rest of this story, at least until the end. This does not mean that the characters not chosen to follow Shepard will disappear, quite the opposite actually. Those who aren’t with Shepard will be out on missions of their own where they will be making their own decisions and affecting the over arcing battle in their own ways. This implementation will allow for longer chapters with more character development for each character along with a better look at the overall affects of the war within Equestria and in the lands surrounding it. Thank you for your time, consideration, and hopefully your opinion.” Pinkie moved away from the podium that she’d been standing behind before she bowed to the audience and began to give out cake.

From Shepard’s group

Ash
Garrus
Tali
Thane
Mordin, Kaidan, Miranda, and Anderson are busy and Pinkie is busy playing in other universes
Joker
Liara
James
EDI
Legion

The elements should be self explanatory, I would hope

AN

Ok guys here’s the shorter version. Only Three Elements and three of Shepard’s crew are allowed to join him on the remainder of his quest. The rest will be off on different plot relative missions. The main reason behind this is that with so many people in the cast Shepard is essentially completely safe, which is getting boring to write. Cast your votes for who joins Shepard in the comments bellow

Time seems to have flown by

Joker looked at the two representatives from Equestria’s best flying force, Spitfire and Soarin were evaluating him with mild skepticism written on their faces. Joker didn’t really blame them; if someone had come onto the Normandy and told him how to do his job he would have given them more than just skepticism. With Celestia in Ponyville dealing with the enemy army and figuring out what they’re next move Luna was in charge in Canterlot, and one of her first directives was for Joker to take two of the leading members of the Wonderbolts aside and teach them how to fly during a war.

“So you’re Joker, I’m Spitfire the leader of the Wonderbolts.” The fiery haired pegasus said offering him her hoof to shake, Joker shook it a little self-consciously. “Princess Luna told us that you know a lot about dogfighting, would you care to give us some pointers?” She asked, she wasn’t unkind just skeptical that the boring looking brown pegasus could share anything that she didn’t already know. Joker smiled, during his time in Equestria he had learned how to use his new body very well and he was confident that his days as a pilot wouldn’t be put to waste.

“Sure, what would you like to know about?” He replied confidently

“I was wondering how you attack and kill an enemy who has mass far superior to your own and has natural weapons that outrank your own by a reasonable margin.” Spitfire replied, Joker could tell that this was a test, any real flyer knew the answer whether they were in ships or flying with wings.

“It’s simple if you know what you’re doing…” He told her “…you use your smaller size to maneuver around the enemy’s attacks and slowly chip away at them, eventually they’ll tire and you can go in for the kill.” Spitfire nodded, it was the answer that she’d wanted to hear.

“What do you think Soarin?” She asked her lieutenant.

“I think that he at least deserves our attention, even if the answer is obvious.” Soarin replied giving Joker another look over.

“That’s what I was thinking; he at least seems to know the basics of aerial combat.” Spitfire said.

“Before we go any farther I need to know what you know too, what is the best way to approach your enemy when you’re flying?” Joker asked Spitfire and Soarin exchanged a glance.

“Head on before they have time to notice you’re there.” Soarin said, Joker sighed.

“Alright, that’s the way that you get shot in the face, do you have a better answer Spitfire?” Joker asked her.

“From below where they can’t see you coming and you can exploit their limited eyesight.” Spitfire volunteered, Joker looked at them in shock.

“Actually that’s a good way to get shot in the face too, to answer the question successfully I’m going to demonstrate. Soarin I want you to fly around up there by that large cumulus formation.” Joker said pointing towards a large cloud bank “I want you to be scanning the sky around you for me, after a minute or two I’ll demonstrate the proper technique.” Joker said, looking vaguely puzzled Soarin took off and began to fly in a circle looking around for Joker. “Spitfire follow me.” Joker said as he took off and flew off outside of Soarin’s view.

“So where are we going to strike from?” Spitfire asked once they had attained a reasonable distance, Joker flashed her a smile.

“Ever heard of death from above?” Spitfire shook her head “It’s an old saying and strategy where I come from, let’s demonstrate.” Joker now flew higher till he was far above where Soarin was flying looking for him. Once he was at a perfect angle he started his decent as he fell he gained more and more speed till he was just a muddy blur shooting across the sky. He was approaching Soarin who still hadn’t noticed him rapidly, twenty seconds before impact joker yelled. “Cowabunga!” Soarin looked up just in time to be blinded by the sun as Joker slammed into him sending him flying into a cloudbank. Several minutes later Soarin reappeared looking no worse for wear but he had a distinct black hoofmark growing around his left eye.

“That was incredible, I had no idea that you were there until you shouted and then I got blinded by the sun!” he said rubbing his eye absently.

“That’s the whole idea, when you’re fighting in the air you always want the high ground, now if I’d had a gun I could have killed you without you even knowing I was there. If you are forced into a physical confrontation like I was you want to catch them by surprise, I gave you the warning because I wanted to prove a second point. You always want to have the sun at your back, always, with it behind you don’t have to worry about being blinded and if your enemy does happen to notice you it’ll buy you a few seconds as he recovers from the glare.” Joker was surprised at how easily he entered lecture mode, his former professors’ mouths would have been openly gaping. ‘This’ Joker decided was going to be fun

***

Celestia looked at the group of ponies before her, Shepard’s crew were seated around him sitting in various states of relaxation, Twilight and her friends by comparison were almost sitting at attention. Celestia sighed inwardly; Twilight could never learn to relax around her.

“Alright as you all know Equestria has recently come under attack from the organization known as Cerberus, Shepard has already filled you in on the details as far they are concerned so I’ll skip over it. Our intelligence agents have reportedly located the major Cerberus base, unfortunately it is all the way across the griffin lands and there will be no rapid way to transport you there so you’re going to have to walk.” Celestia heard several groans but carried on “There is another issue as well.”

“What is it Princess?” Twilight asked her mentor in concern

“There are some maters that must be attended to that neither I nor any of my troops can complete without raising far too many eyebrows. Because of this Shepard is to travel across the griffin lands in the company of three of his crew and three of you.” She said turning to Twilight and her friends. “The rest of you are needed here on the home front to provide support and advice. Twilight and her friends exchanged looks, as did Shepard’s crew.

“Garrus, Tali, Thane, you’re with me.” Shepard said immediately, they nodded. “Ash because you technically outrank me and have more experience with strategy you stay here and offer advice to the Princess.” Ash looked pained but nodded “As for everypony else I’ll leave it to Celestia to assign you.” Shepard told his crew, James rolled his eyes; he was going to get stuck with guard duty again. The process for Twilight’s group took much longer.

“All right girls, who besides me is going with Shepard?” Twilight asked her friends.

“Ah think I should Twi, I’m handy in a fight” AJ volunteered, drawing laughter from Dash.

“Which part, the part where you spend the entire time hiding, or the part where you miss every shot that you fire?” Dash asked her after she was done laughing, AJ snorted indignantly.

“What makes yall think you’re more qualified?” AJ retorted angrily.

“Well let’s see, I’m the best flyer in Equestria, I can perform the Sonic Rainboom, I have an ancient Paladin living in my head giving me advice, and I can outshoot you any day of the week.” Dash finished arrogantly.

“Rainbow I already included you, for all of those reasons except for the last one, who else is coming?” Twilight asked simultaneously ending the argument.

“I would like to.” Fluttershy said drawing startled glances from her friends.

“But Fluttershy you got your revenge, why would you still want to fight these ruffians?” Rarity asked the yellow pegasus.

“Because nopony attacks my town and gets away with it” Fluttershy said “And because I go where Dash goes.”

“Look Sugarcube, we understand you wantin to spend more time with your marefriend, but I don think that you’re up for a long term mission like this.” AJ told her sympathetically.

“AJ I’ll be fine, I can hold my own, I can outstare a dragon, besides with two sets of wings scouting will be easier and I can provide melee support.” Fluttershy said moving her sword more prominently into view.

“Princess what do you think?” Twilight asked her master hoping to end the argument early.

“I would have to say Fluttershy; she makes very good points, besides you never know when you might need a good swordsmare around.” Celestia answered Rarity and AJ exchanged vexed looks but said nothing. “Alright now that that’s settled let’s discuss this journey that Shepard and his party are going to be going on. I can arrange passports that will enable you to get into the Griffin Land; these passports will also keep the griffin soldiers from asking questions if you show them to them. After you enter the Griffin Land you need to head north until you bump up against the land of the dragons, once there follow the map that I’m sending with you to find the location of the Cerberus base. Once there kill the Illusive Man and end this whole war.”

“When do we have to leave Celestia?” Shepard asked the monarch, his eyes drifting across his crew and finally settling on Ash, Celestia smiled at the look on his face, she understood his feelings.

“Don’t worry Shepard you can leave tomorrow afternoon when the train gets here to take you on the first step of your journey.” Celestia told him with a soft chuckle at the relived look on his face. “You’re all free to go; I’ll send Arsenal for you when it’s time for you to be at the train station.” With that she inclined her head and they began to flow out of the briefing room, except for Twilight who naturally stayed to talk to her mentor.

“Are there any things that are for my ears only Princess?” Twilight asked Celestia nodded.

“Like I told you earlier that book that Pinkie gave you is of incredible value whatever you do, do not under any circumstances let it fall into the enemies hooves. The events that followed would be so gut wrenchingly terrible that a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster would barely ease your worries. I can’t stress the point enough,DO NOT LOSE THAT BOOK!” Twilight nodded, she understood the severity of what the princess had just told her, she also made a mental note to look up whatever a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster was.

“I won’t fail you Princess, I promise that I will destroy the book before I let it fall into enemy hooves.” Twilight replied seriously, Celestia calmed down once she saw that she had gotten her point across clearly.

“Sorry Twilight I didn’t mean to do that but on to topic number two, I want you to watch Shepard. I don’t think that he’s secretly evil or any such nonsense but he doesn’t know the costumes of anypony and I don’t want any more diplomatic incidents to deal with.” Twilight nodded.

“I’ll keep him out of trouble Princess you can count on me!” Celestia smiled at Twilight’s exuberance.

“I know you will my little pony, now you should probably go and keep Fluttershy from decapitating Apple Jack while she defends Rainbow Dash.” Celestia replied just as Twilight heard the sounds of her friends raised voices.

“Get over here you rainbow haired braggart and let ma show yall what ah do to ponies who insult me.” Came AJ’s voice from outside, Twilight ran out to find AJ and Dash circling each other, standing in-between them with her hoof on the hilt of her sword was Fluttershy. “Fluttershy yall get out of ma way this is between the two of us!” AJ told Fluttershy.

“Yeah Fluttershy I don’t need you to defend me, not that I’m not glad that you’re willing to.” Dash said her voice softening at the end.

“No you’re both being stupid, AJ what Dash said was arrogant and she really shouldn’t have said it, but you’re the Element of Honesty and you know she wasn’t lying which is why you’re letting this get to you. Instead of trying to threaten Dash why don’t you ask one of Shepard’s crew to show you how to effectively use your weapons?” Fluttershy said her voice was calm and friendly; it was actually surprisingly close to the way that Fluttershy used to talk before she became a Paladin although it lacked the usual stutter.

“No she’s wrong I’m not useless!” AJ said her voice sounded desperate.

“I never said your were AJ, I just said that I was better suited for the mission!” Dash said in exasperation. “Fine I’ll admit that it came out wrong but that’s my personality and you know it!” Dash continued, as Dash’s words washed over Apple Jack her grimace began to vanish, suddenly she shook her head as if to clear it.

“I’m sorry Dash, ah think that the Paladin in me reared its head and I couldn’t help maself.” AJ said Dash shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it, the only reason that I’m not insane at this point is Shika, which could technically be used as a counter argument, but you know what I’m trying to say.” She finished lamely getting a smile out of AJ, Twilight sighed happily, her friends were still her friends no matter what had been done to them.

***

With her sister out with the army Luna had been left with the duty of delegating the royal affairs in her absence, she currently sat on the throne of Canterlot flanked by her two guards who stood like statues beside her. Luna however knew from long experience that the guard on her right must have been laughing his flank off inside his head. Luna herself was having trouble keeping from snickering herself at the ridiculousness of the request that had just been presented to her.

“So let me go over this again just to make sure that I understand exactly what you’re asking of me…” Luna said looking down at the arrogant stallion before her “…You want me to appoint you Knight Captain of the Palace Guard until my sister and Arsenal get back, did I get that right?” she asked him, she somehow managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Yes that is correct, I’m a prince after all I should command the guards directly.” Prince Blueblood said in an arrogant voice, it was dripping with class to the point that Luna felt that she would need a bath after speaking to him.

“And you have completed the required military service to be qualified for the position, correct?” Luna asked him, he seemed to be oblivious to where she was going with this.

“Why no, why would I ever wish to go through military service, I could get dirty or possibly even muddy!” Blueblood said in shock, Luna briefly considered throwing him into the sun, but thought better of it, Tia probably wouldn’t appreciate the new hole in the ceiling.

“So you expect to be able to command the guards directly and efficiently after never having served a day in your life, I’m only asking so that I have a firm grasp of the situation.” Luna replied.

“Of course as a prince I’m automatically much smarter and more capable than the average guard.” Blueblood answered, Luna exchanged secret glances with her two favorite guards.

“Well then it is only fair that you prove your tactical mastery by defeating one of my guards, this will cement your role as Knight Captain.” Luna told him “Saber here would be happy to allow you the honor of proving yourself against him.” She nodded towards her guard on her left.

“Very well I will agree to this challenge!” Blueblood replied arrogantly stepping forward, Luna whispered to Saber.

“Don’t kill him; Tia doesn’t like blood stains getting on the carpet.” Saber nodded before he stepped forward to face Blueblood who snorted disdainfully.

“Un guard!” Blueblood said and he charged forward towards Saber who sidestepped and delivered a powerful buck to Blueblood’s face sending him rolling across the floor till he wound up in a heap. “You hit me!” Blueblood exclaimed in pain “You impudent fool I’ll have you hanged for your assault on the royal ponysonage!” Saber turned to Luna and raised an eyebrow.

“Blueblood you challenged him to a duel, now you need to accept the consequences, also don’t threaten to hang my guards…it will end badly for you…” Luna trailed off but made it incredibly clear what she meant. Blueblood was shocked; it appeared that he had finally seen the corner that he’d backed himself into. The following ten minutes consisted of one of the most hilariously one-sided fights that Luna had ever seen. As Blueblood was led away by one of the court physicians her other guard Arrow leaned over and whispered just loud enough to be heard by every pony in the room.

“I thought that his blood was supposed to be blue.” Luna cracked up for a few seconds before she turned back to court who were all quietly laughing at Anvil’s joke.

“I think that that calls about the end of my meetings today, unless somepony has something urgent to report of course.” Luna said, a couple of the court thought about it for a second before shaking their heads and leaving the room. Once the throne room was empty Luna sighed. “Why did I ever want this job?” She asked herself, her two guards who just shook their heads.

AN, Loose ends

Time to explain some things that I thought would be too odd to explain in the story. I’ll start with this chapter; the Wonderbolts are emergency responders and showmen. This means that although they are the best flyers in Equestria they don’t really know what they’re doing combat wise which is why they fail during any emergency. On to other things, time moves differently in Equestria compared to how it does in Mass Effect reality which is why Anderson is Captain of the guards along with how the others know what they’re doing. When Kaidan mentioned the others coming late when I was introducing them he meant that he’d been here for around ten years, the others have been here for around five. I’m sure there’s more that I missed, just post a comment with the question and I’ll answer anything that I don’t want to come into major importance later, oh and on a side note it’s good to be back.

The veil is liftedmaybe

So tomorrow were off on a quest to save the world, you know Shepard I occasionally wouldnt mind for our little crew to go somewhere where we arent getting shot at. Garrus said as they sat around the main room of their large house.

Where would the fun be in that Garrus? Shepard asked him seemingly aghast at the idea as he chewed a bite of muffin with a smile. Garrus shook his head back and laughed, it was late but neither of them were tired yet and Ash had told him to wake her when he came in. So Garrus I keep forgetting to ask, howre you and Tali doing? Shepard asked Garrus, who shook his head.

Things are going better then I possibly expected them to, I think that weve really connected. Which reminds me Shepard why did you pick Tali Than and me for this mission? Garrus asked Shepard.

Well Garrus youre pretty much my best friend, along with the fact that you have enough experience commanding a squad that if I get hurt or die the squad will still be able to carry out its main objective. Tali has amazing tech skills that will be really useful if we need someone to hack our way into someplace besides being very good with that shotgun. And Thane not only seems to know a lot about this land but every team needs an effective ninja assassin to be effective. Shepard replied honestly, Garrus considered that for a few seconds before he nodded.

What about Twilight and her friends additions to the team, how do you think theyll do? Garrus asked Shepard.

Twilight will be invaluable, Dash will be extremely useful, and Fluttershy has turned into an intimidating fighter, I think well be fine. Shepard replied with a slight smile.

I think youre right the Illusive Man wont know what hit him, then again when were involved nopony ever does. Unfortunately I promised Tali that wed have time totalkbefore tomorrow so Ive got to go, see you in the morning Shepard. Garrus told him rising from his seat across from Shepard and heading towards his room. Shepard spent a few minutes looking into the fire before putting it out and heading towards his room. When he opened the door Ash looked up from a book she was reading.

Well you certainly took your time Ethan, I was afraid Id actually fall asleep before we got a chance to talk. Ash said setting the book on the table beside her.

Sorry Ash Garrus and I needed to talk about some things for this upcoming mission. Shepard replied apologetically.

Speaking of the mission I want to know the real reason that you dont want me following you into hell like I have before. Ash looked at him seriously; Shepard rubbed the back of his neck with his hoof before he went over to sit next to her on the bed.

What I said was true Ash you are the one best suited to lead the others, but theres another reason too. He told her

What is it Ethan? She asked him in concern.

Ash, I know you know already but I love you. If anything bad happened to you while you were with me then even this colorful world would be grey and bland, I cant risk it, I cant risk you. Shepard told her quietly.

Shepard Ash said at a loss for words, Shepard put his hoof to her lips.

Stay here and advise Celestia, keep the others from doing stupid things, and if it comes to it kick some flank out on the frontlines. Shepard told her before he leaned in for a kiss

***

SHE DID WHAT! Mordin yelled at Anderson who winced slightly My weapon wont be ready for another month and shes sending Shepard out to stop the Illusive Man now. Have to finish faster; the journey wont take a month. Mordin said to himself before walking back towards the lab.

Well at least hes going to be in a brighter mood for a while. Kaidan deadpanned, Miranda and Anderson sighed, it was going to be a long week.

***

The Illusive Man had been in Equestria for four years, at first hed been confused but once he understood the situation he knew what his goal would be. He walked along the corridors of his base heading for the command room, as he walked his talons clicked against the floor. When hed arrived he was surrounded by his troops, all of whom he knew had died in the explosion of his base or subsequently during the attack on the Citadel. He had been unfamiliar with his body but had soon decided that he liked it more than his old human form; it garnered far more respect and it was certainly more durable. He walked into the meeting room which was an impressive five hundred meters tall, it also functioned as a control room, and a lab.

Sir I have bad news to report. Squawked one of his tech griffins uncomfortably.

What is it? The Illusive Man asked the techy, his voice was still a little deep for his liking but that didnt matter now.

It appears that Leng is dead, along with the entire army that you sent to Ponyville. The Illusive Man was silent for a timewhich worried the tech griffin; he had a family after all.

That is most unfortunate, Id hoped that Leng would be able to handle Shepard himself, I certainly sent more than enough guards to help him. The Illusive Man said quietly, the tech griffin winced visibly drawing the Illusive Mans eye. Youre Jenkins arent you? he asked Jenkins nodded.

Yes sir, I joined the cause after the day you destroyed the Kings army. The Illusive man smiled.

That was a good day; tell me Jenkins do you have a family?

Ye, yes sir I do. Jenkins stammered, almost like he was afraid the Illusive man would eat him.

Well good, at least you have something worthwhile to go home to. Nodding in relief Jenkins raised his courage for a second time.

Umm sir I would just like to tell you that shes still out there. The Illusive Man sighed, she just wouldnt go away and hed so far been unable to kill her.

Shes just a minor nuisance, nothing to get worked up over, remember we kill her if we get the chance, if thats all youre free to go. Jenkins nodded and left quietly letting the Illusive Man look into the lava at the bottom of his volcano base that was visible below twenty feet of glass and steel. You should have killed him for his disrespect! Her voice spoke up in his mind, he ignored her, or it until the Elements got here he had decided that he had better people skills. The members of Cerberus had been a little skeptical when their leader had chosen the volcano to be his secret base, but then again he was the boss, besides it fit him. What he hadnt been expecting was the large temple located at the very bottom of the volcanos main shaft, inside had been a large collection of powerful oddities with which he had managed to fashion some fairly interesting devices. The temple came at a cost though; one mare wouldnt stop trying to get into his base to discover the temple, what drove her the Illusive Man couldnt begin to fathom. Feeling a distinct hunger in his stomach he launched himself airborne using his powerful wings and started the short trip up the volcano tube, sighting a large manticore he angled in for the kill. Later after he was done enjoying his roasted manticore his mind went back to plotting, after all that was what he did best.

AN
Now what is the Illusive Man I think I left enough evidence for you to figure it out, heres a hint. He isnt a pony

A new journey begins

The first train on their long journey to the Griffin Lands left the station and began to pull away from the small crowd that had gathered around to see them off. Twilight had her nose stuck in that odd book that seemed to know everything; Fluttershy and Dash were doing something in the dining car getting food; Garrus and Tali were in some other car walking around. This left Shepard essentially alone in the passenger car with only his thoughts for company. He eventually fell into a light sleep.

***

Shepard stared around him, wherever he was it looked like nowhere that he’d ever been before, the skies fluctuated between pink and purple while the stars themselves which were clearly visible even with the sun up spun in odd ever-changing patterns. The ground was red with random specks of blue interspaced at unpredictable intervals and several gold colored rocks were scattered about. Standing in front of Shepard was an odd creature that seemed to be made up of body parts from various animals.

“Where am I?” Shepard asked the creature before him who regarded him with a slight smile.

“Well you’re technically on your way to meet your death but that’s beside the point.” The creature said his voice was oddly cultured.

“So you’re the new body of the Illusive Man.” Shepard said, he wasn’t impressed, the creature let out a hearty laugh.

“Nothing so boring I assure you, my name is Discord, the god of Chaos and Disharmony. I’ve been helping Tia fight this war and I thought that it was time that her new champion and I had a little heart to heart.” Said Discord while he stepped forward and wrapped his arm around Shepard’s shoulder, causing Shepard to shudder slightly which made Discord laugh as he led Shepard towards a castle.

“I think Twilight mentioned you, something about mind rape.” Shepard said causing Discord to laugh again.

“Oh Twilight Sparkle I truly will enjoy her company in the centuries to come once Tia decides to cast that spell of hers, but anyways I did indeed commit the crimes that I’ve been accused of, quite happily at the time in fact.” Discord said as they stepped into the courtyard of the castle.

“Then why should I trust anything you say?” Shepard asked Discord while he futilely tried to break the draconequus’s grip on his shoulder.

“You don’t but I would advise it, especially if you want to see your future wife again.” Discord said causing Shepard to freeze.

“Are you threatening Ash?” Shepard asked in a low growl, Discord laughed yet again.

“My dear boy you misunderstand me, I’m implying that if you don’t follow my advice then the being you know as the Illusive Man will utterly obliterate you and your little party of ponies without having to lift a talon. Then he’ll walk into Canterlot kill Celestia and Luna followed by almost every pony in the land who he can’t indoctrinate with his magic or force into a long term breeding camp so that he’ll have a continual supply of soldiers. I meant no direct harm against your female.” Discord said leading him deeper into the castle until they came to a sitting room. Inside the fireplace situated at the center of the room burned bright turquoise flames, in front of the fire place were two cozy looking leather armchairs. Discord took one and gestured for Shepard to take the other.

“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” Shepard asked him narrowing his eyes.

“Because Shepard if I wanted to hurt you, you would already be dead.” Discord said with a smile on his face. “Now onto business, I know things that Tia quite frankly can’t. So I know that the Illusive Man has become something that no lone pony could hope to match, even if I were free he could overwhelm Ti, Luna, and myself quite easily in a match of pure strength. Which is why you challenging him directly is a fool’s errand at best, and suicide at worst.”

“I’ve beat the odds dozens of times before, what makes this any different?” Shepard asked Discord in annoyance, Discord sighed as if her were talking to a foal.

“The last time you tried you got sent here after essentially destroying all of galactic civilization by causing the Mass Relays to become nothing but worthless slag. You put all of the strongest military powers in your galaxy in one place where they’ll now remain for an indefinite amount of time and most probably start a massive war of extinction with one another; I think that it would be wise to listen to what the physical god is telling you after those results.” Shepard gritted his teeth in frustration but remained silent. “Luckily for you this train is heading in the right direction even if the next couple will have to be rearranged. Your new goal is to head directly for Drakeonland where you will hopefully be able to convince their Council of Elders that your cause is the right one. The Council will not want to help you however but I think that somepony as good at negation as you should be able to manage, then once you have their support you can end this war.” Suddenly a pegasus entered the room.

“Master there is another army on the horizon; I suggest that we obliterate them.”

“Thank you Screwball I’ll join you in a few moments, now Shepard I must say goodbye I have a war of my own to fight…”

****

Shepard sat bolt upright as the train carried on its way down the track, turning he saw Twilight still engrossed in the book but decided that she was the only pony he could talk about his odd chat with Discord. He got up from his seat and trotted over to her, she looked up from her book with obvious reluctance when he tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“What do you need Shepard” she asked as she put her book into her pack, when Shepard was done explaining Twilight let out a low whistle.

“Going before the Dragon Council itself…this is going to be much more difficult then I would have anticipated. If that’s what we need to do then this Illusive Man must truly have become a foe to be reckoned with, luckily the Dragon Council is normally on neutral terms with every nation so all we will have to do is convince them that our cause is just and righteous.”

“I thought that except Spike the dragons were all thoughtless brutes.” Shepard said in confusion.

“Those are only the dragons that go on the migration and occasionally show up in Equestria, the ones that stay in Drakeonland are all intelligent and extremely powerful. If one of their members were to go to war against Equestria he would leave nothing but a swath of ash and bleached bones behind him. Thankfully they don’t normally get involved in conflicts and they have a fair respect for life, I’ve heard that immortality does that to someone...” Twilight told him her voice trailing off as she lost herself in thought.

“So what’s our first move?” Shepard asked her.

“…We’re going to switch our train route so that we can get to Drakeonland instead of the Griffin Lands, then we’re going to have to make a long and dangerous journey through countryside until we end up at Mt. Inferno where the members of the Council live.” Twilight told him while her mind raced.

“I’ll go get the others.” Shepard said. He rounded the others up and brought them back to the main cabin where Twilight waited, when Twilight was done recounting the information Dash gasped.

“Sorry but um Shika wants to use me to tell you guys something” she said before clearing her throat and in different voice Dash said “This shall be a journey of sorrow and hardship even in my days we respected the Dragon Council and feared the consequences of what would happen, you must approach them with great dignity or else they will most likely kill you. You say that things have changed and they are more benign now than they ever were before even if this is true you must watch yourself, one slip of the tongue could unleash a fountain of flames!” Shika/Dash told them her voice direr.

“Aren’t you being a little overdramatic?” Tali asked her.

“Every Paladin that Equestria’s ever had along with every queen, unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, and other assorted being put together would barely be able to hold off one of them, there are over a hundred.” Shika/Dash replied quietly “This Illusive Man has most likely heard of them and set envoys far in advance of us, I hope whatever diplomats your Queen sent ahead are effective.” Shika/Dash shook her head and then she was Dash again. “Sorry guys it won’t happen much, so what’s the plan?”

“We get off of this train and onto a train heading towards Drakeonland; once we get there we march till we make it to Mt. Inferno, at which point we ask the Dragon Council if they’ll help us.” Twilight said. “The hardest part is going to be getting there though; Drakeonland is a land covered in volcanoes oceans of lava, dangerous creatures, and very little supplies to speak of.” Twilight told them, they exchanged worried looks, except for Garrus.

“I’ve followed Shepard to the center of the galaxy and back, I’m more then prepared to march through hell for him.”

“Thanks Garrus.” Shepard told his friend appreciatively, Garrus nodded.

“You can count on me to Shepard.” Tali said with a nod.

“I’ve waited for this for five years; I’m ready.” Thane said with a slight smile. Fluttershy and Dash nodded.

“Well then I suggest we enjoy the three train rides, because once we’re off of it we’re going to be hoofing it.” Twilight said getting a well deserved groan out of everypony.

***

Celestia was sitting in her war room when suddenly a letter appeared in front of her with a small puff of magic she quickly scanned the contents of the letter before letting out a gasp of shock. She mentally called to her sister who teleported herself to Celestia with a dark flash of light.

“What is it Tia?” Luna asked, Celestia didn’t risk important information over mental communication, to many ways for it to be intercepted.

“Shepard and Twilight are going to Drakeonland to try and vie for the Dragon Council’s help.” Celestia told Luna flatly.

“She’s doing what!” Luna said in surprise.

“Exactly.” Celestia replied. Luna stared at her sister for a few seconds before she said.

“It’s good that we sent those two to be our diplomats…”

“Yes I think that they should be able to help Twilight and Shepard’s cause, although Twilight is going to receive the shock of her life.” Celestia replied, Luna got a far off look in her eye.

“So when exactly are you going to cast the spell on Twilight sister, it isn’t as if you’re running out of time, it’s just that I would think sooner would be preferable to later?” Luna asked Celestia changing topics.

“Luna I told you, when I think that she’s ready.” Celestia said in slight annoyance.

“Tia she’s already defeated three gods, once this Illusive Man is down her count will be four, I would think that that’s when it would be appropriate.” Luna said, Celestia wasn’t the type to forget this kind of thing, but Luna felt that her sister was being ridicules.

“Maybe you’re right Luna, having someponyelse to watch over Discord once we free him would be very helpful…” Celestia mused to herself.

“Sister did you hear about Blueblood?” Luna asked her sister who nodded and sighed.

“The idiot, he presumes far too much for someone of his office, on the bright side if the report that I received is correct then he shouldn’t be much trouble for a while. Four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and two broken ankles, your guard really did a number on him.” Celestia said with a slight smile.

“Yes Saber was quite pleased with himself afterwards, he almost smiled!” Luna said with amusement. Celestia laughed before she turned to her sister and said.

“I suppose you should get back before he tries to throw a coup, good luck Luna.” Celestia said with a wink.

“Oh I’ll try Tia, I’m not sure what I’d do if Blueblood ever attacked, I probably wouldn’t be able to defend myself, I’d be so overcome with laughter.” Luna said dryly with a smile before she vanished leaving Celestia to plan alone.

Eagles wouldve been nice

AJ was walking dejectedly back towards her home, nopony had wanted much to do with her, the remaining members of Shepards crew were all exchanging information and Rarity had had something to do at her boutique. Then she heard the sound of walking hooves behind and turned around to see who was following her, as it turned out it was James.

What do ya want? AJ asked him slightly uncertainly

Well I overheard your argument with your friend Dash, and I was wondering if you wanted to learn how to shoot? James asked her kindly.

Dont you have better things to do? AJ asked him, secretly thrilled that hed offered.

As much as I hate to admit it Im not important enough to be given any secret directives so Im settling for helping out somepony who needs instruction in one of my favorite parts of life. James said with a slight smile.

Yallre really willin to train me? AJ asked

Of course I am, pretty soon youll be the best shot of any of your friends, and youll get to spend time with me as an added bonus. AJ smiled, she liked this stallion he was easy going and had a good sense of humor.

All right when do we start? She asked him.

Once we get to your farm Im sure we can set up some targets, we might even use the barn. AJ laughed

***

Liara looked at Dr. House for a second as he read her chart before she asked

So where were you originally from? House looked up from his chart.

A normal hospital in twentieth century America, I was the diagnostics specialists. From what I heard about you, you were a sexy blue skinned alien whose entire race was originally lesbian. House said, Liara nodded

That about sums it up, oh and we can kill you with our minds. House laughed.

Id love to see you try.

Theres a story about a group of our troops, once one of our ships was ambushed by several dozen mercenary ships. We destroyed or decommissioned all of them but even our ships cant stand that much fire power so it crash landed along with several of the enemy ships. Over the next week the enemy suffered hundreds of casualties, eventually they surrendered. The five Asari Commandoes who accepted stepped forward to accept their surrender hadnt suffered a single casualty since the crash; needless to say the mercenaries werent happy about losing a few hundred troops to five asari, but after the week of hell they were put through they surrendered without a fight. House just shrugged.

Very impressive, if you were fighting something besides random mercenaries who one werent the brightest bulbs in the box and two most likely lacked any discipline. House replied looking back at her chart Youll be out of here in two days; Im going to go check on the ex-AI to make sure she hasnt tried to DESTROY ALL HUMANS yet today. Liara would have flipped him off if she had a finger to flip.

***

Joker was surprised, which in retrospect was stupid, in two days the Wonderbolts had already mastered all of the techniques that he prepared for them to learn over the course of two weeks. Spitfire was proud of her unit and it showed, as they went through the drills she had a constant half smile on her face. Joker was snapped out of his thinking by a screeching siren, he looked around in confusion before he noticed a large platoon of griffins approaching Cloudsdale rapidly. He looked for Spitfire and she nodded, it was time to see if his training had been successful. The ten members of the Wonderbolts and joker rose high above the clouds tracking the enemy as they went, as one they dived silently downward. The griffins were caught completely unaware as the Wonderbolts flew through them using their wings to slice large holes through the enemy and then blasting upward right back through the formation before any order could be restored. They were moving so fast that the griffins seemed to be torn to ribbons by nothing but air, blood was flying everywhere as the Wonderbolts flew effortless circles around their enemies till there were none left alive in the air. Soarin brohoofed Joker once the enemies were all dead, even though they were all covered in blood and feathers they were all ecstatic about how well things had gone

***

Legion and Ash stood side by side surveying the enemy troops through binoculars. Cerberus had lined the valley with hundreds of troops who were all preparing to attack Canterlot; how he thought he could get away with it Ash didnt know.

The Cerberus troops will be unable to escape this trap; I estimate five hundred losses for them and possibly fifty for us. Legion said after he was done scanning.

Id agree they arent expecting any attacks and they didnt even post sentries, yeah thisll be quick and painless, idiots. Ash said turning her back to the enemy and giving the signal to Lyra who in turn relayed to Anderson who sent it Celestia. The white alicorn flew silently over the enemy host faster than the eye could see as she flew she dropped small canisters down on the unsuspecting heads of the enemy. Rarity had been rather proud of the canisters, inside each was a spell that sent out small waves of fire or electricity in all directions, the explosions were also beautiful and refined

And now... Ash said as she flipped a switch, the canisters which had somehow gone unnoticed till now activated spewing forth fire and lightning, Ash had to admit there was something extremely graceful about watching a griffin being roasted alive in less than ten seconds. First wave go! Ash shouted to the members of the guard given the honor of being in the first wave, with a mighty war cry the first wave flew forward into the ranks of the shell-shocked and confused griffins leaving a bloody swath in their wake. Second wave go! Ash shouted and watched in grim satisfaction as the second wave cauterized the wound by killing every griffin missed by the first wave. Beside her Legion had gotten out his sniper and was taking careful aim into the enemy ranks, each shot killed two or three griffins, he was still mechanical about it, but a small smile touched his lips with every shot he took. A great wail of despair rang out from the enemy as Legion took out all of their commanders who for some reason had been lined up in a straight line.

Williams Commander we invite you to join the slaughter. Legion said handing her the rifle, Ash nodded and looked down the sights until she spotted a good target; it was an officer who was trying to rally the griffins around him. Her shot took him right in the left eye socket sending him flying backwards into the troops hed been trying to rally. From behind them Ash heard an odd noise, the noise of metal sliding out of leather. She turned to find a dead griffin lying on the ground at Legions hooves, he picked his throwing knife out of the griffins throat and quickly cleaned it before returning it to a sheath on his shoulder.

Thanks Legion. Ash told him as she lined up another shot.

It is simply what is expected of me Williams Commander, although I am happy to assist whenever it is necessary for me to. Legion told her, a small smile played over his face before he returned to watching the skies. Ash shook her head, he was still a geth at heart, but at least he was learning.

***

Shepard surveyed the landscape that stretched across the horizon and squashed the small part of him that wanted to flee in the opposite direction under his hoof. Drakeonland was indeed as Twilight had described it, large volcanoes rose in the distance belching fire and ash into the air, the land itself was made up of sand that had been turned into glass, ash, and the odd rock jutting out of the glass and ash at irregular angles. It almost made Discords realm look inviting.

Isnt there an old saying about walking into Mordor? Garrus asked getting a smile from Shepard, Tali turned to him with a puzzled look. Old human book, great read if youre bored and waiting for combat. Garrus filled her in.

Twilight how long of a journey is it to Mt. Inferno? Shepard asked Twilight looking at their supplies.

Ten days of hard walking. Twilight replied

And we cant just fly there why? Tali asked looking at Dash and Fluttershy.

Because the dragons of the area will blow us out of the sky for flying without a permit, the exception being pegasi or other naturally flying creatures, and that only extends around five meters in the air except for royalty. Twilight replied Im not exactly looking forward to this; apparently the creatures here make Everfree look like a walk down a rose strewn road by comparison. Garrus traded a look with Shepard.

Yeah Ive got point; you owe me for this Shepard. Garrus said before drawing his rifle and started forward down the first steps of what would be an incredibly fun walk. The rest followed him unsure of what had just happened, with the exception of Tali who knew that Garrus had volunteered for the most dangerous position. So Twilight, Im going to assume that I shouldnt shoot dragons right. Garrus said.

Only shoot things that attack you first, except for dragons, if they attack Ill cover us with a shield and try to negotiate our way through.

Understood, if the giant flying fire breathing talking lizard attacks I hope that you can talk it down, have I mentioned how much I love this job to anypony? Garrus asked, his voice was full of sarcasm Tali sighed.

Garrus we both know that well make it through this alive, we have Shepard with us. She said

***

Luna sat once again on the throne of Canterlot while her sister was out fighting the war, and honestly she was getting bored, shed already dealt with everything that she could conceivably think of and she wasnt even halfway through the day. At her side Arrow sighed, even he and Saber were getting bored, and theyd helped her through her time in the moon.

Princess, are you pondering what Im pondering? Arrow asked her, she looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

I think so Arrow but how are possible going to get a cannon capable of firing the aristocrats into space at this time of day? Luna replied with a smile

I was thinking of the ocean actually, but your idea sounds more fun. Arrow replied with a smile stretching across his face. Luna sighed again, as much fun as it would be to fire the nobles into space and then retrieve them without harm she had the oddest feeling that her sister wouldnt approve of it.

Saber, can you think of anything? Luna asked her mostly silent companion.

You could always make a new spell Princess. He replied curtly, he wasnt rude, he just didnt talk much.

What type of spell do you suggest? Luna asked him

Something useful. He replied helpfully with a slight grin.

Alright something useful it is, now I just need a more specific category.

Magic

Saber stop it, I need an angle if Im going to make anything useful. Luna said she was starting to get annoyed with him.

Obtuse.

Saber! Luna said in outrage until she noticed the grin spreading wider across his face, thats when she realized she wasnt bored anymore. Thank you Saber Im not bored anymore. She told him sincerely.

Its my job. Saber replied before adopting his usual silence again. Luna smiled, she was glad that shed transformed them with her magic; they were the only ponies besides her sister who truly understood her.

***

It had been eight days and Shepards party was on constant edge, on the first night theyd been swarmed by giant bats that had blotted out the moon, Twilight had used a large shield spell to protect them from the onslaught but it had been difficult and shed slept like a stone. The second day theyd just finished crossing a large river of lava when a group of basilisks had emerged out of a nearby cave and charged, luckily none of them had been turned to stone and Fluttershy had managed to shop off ones head. On the third day they had been walking along when a group of what Twilight called magma golems had erupted from a nearby stream of lava and charged leaving behind large lava footprints with every step, Shepard had thought quickly and thrown a freeze grenade that Thane had given him. It had continued like that steadily until they were finally in sight of their destination, Shepard had seen Olympus Mons once or twice when hed been to mars and this volcano dwarfed even that. As if sensing that they were nearing their destination Drakeonland sent one last surprise their way converging on them from all directions were dozens of lizard like creatures, their bodies glowed with an inner light that made them look like they were aflame.

Salamanders! Twilight yelled as she sent a wave of kinetic force at their opponents, which passed right through the enemy creatures. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light followed by Twilight saying I dont believe it!

AN
Yeah I skipped a ton of traveling, so kill me

A meeting with the council

Twilight stared in wonder at the figure before her, stepping out of the light was a large stallion who Twilight recognized immediately.

“I don’t believe it!” Twilight exclaimed as the stallion barked a few orders to the salamanders in a language that Twilight couldn’t understand. The salamanders let out growls of frustration but they submitted and walked back the way that they’d come.’

“Twily am I glad to see you!” Her brother exclaimed scooping her into a hug.

“Shining Armor how did you even get here?” Twilight asked once she was out of the hug, her brother laughed.

“Come on Twily you knew that Cadance and I were diplomats, Celestia just sent us where she thought we were needed.” Twilight stared at her brother.

“You’re the diplomats to the Dragon Council, and you never told me!” she sounded annoyed, her brother sighed.

“Sorry Twily I assumed that Celestia would tell you, I haven’t had much time to write between juggling politics, and keeping the griffins from gaining and advantage with the dragons.” He said apologetically “So who are your new friends?” He asked turning to Shepard, Garrus, Tali, and Thane.

“I’m Commander Shepard; this is Garrus, Tali, and Thane.” Shepard said offering Shining Armor his hoof to shake, Shining Armor did so and was impressed with Shepard’s grip.

“We can talk more once we’re inside Mt. Inferno, as for now I suggest we leave before those salamanders come back.” Shining Armor said gesturing behind him with his horn and somehow opening a large swirling doorway. He stepped through it followed by the others, when they emerged from the other side Twilight gasped the room that they were in was huge. Lava poured off of ledges above them in slow meandering streams until they fell into the bottomless chasm that stretched off into the distance. The room that they were in was apparently attached to one of the walls of the volcano, Twilight tried looking for the opposite wall, but her vision didn’t travel nearly far enough.

“That’s the great thing about traveling with you Shepard, for every time we almost get killed we also get to see something truly incredible!” Garrus said inspecting the scenery in awe.

“Don’t worry Garrus after this war I think I’ll be done.” Shepard replied

“Twily you did an amazing job getting here, although I’ve got to say that the death toll was surprisingly high for such a small group.” Shining Armor told his sister while the others talked.

“What do you mean?” She asked him in confusion.

“Well let’s see, you killed everything that you encountered on your way in, except for a swam of giant bats!” Her brother didn’t sound mad, he sounded amused. “Most ponies have the sense to run from some fights but not my sister.” He was smiling at her with a large grin on his face “Thanks to your little killing spree the Dragon Council is willing to take us seriously unlike the griffins.”

“Wait what?” Twilight asked her brother in confusion.

“The Dragon Council respects those who can defend themselves and survive on their own, and up till now you were doing just that under some of the worst conditions on the planet. The griffins on the other hand just flew a few feet off the ground until they got here without having to fight a single thing, the Dragons called them cowardly curs.” He chuckled quietly to himself at the memory.

“So what now Brother?” Twilight asked him her eyes scanning the room.

“Now you meet with the Dragon Council and plea your case.” A deep female voice said from behind them. Twilight jumped in surprise as did the others with the exception of Shining Armor; standing behind them was a massive dragon, easily four times as big as the one that they had displaced from the cave near Ponyville. Her scales were red with gold inlay and her eyes which were the color of emeralds were the size of house windows, two streams of smoke pooled their way out of her nostrils and below them was a mouth filled with teeth twice as tall as a pony. “My name is Ruthiel Firebrand and I’ve been charged with making sure you don’t set off any international incidents.” She said it with a slight smile gracing her face, Twilight didn’t know why but this dragon reminded her of an old librarian.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, student to Princess Celesta Bringer of the Sun; these are my friends and companions…” She was stopped by Ruthiel raising a talon.

“You can tell the Council, I’ll learn all your names and titles then, oh and hi Shika good to see you again.” Dash sputtered for a second before she asked.

“How did you know that she was in here?” Ruthiel smiled and turned her head as she walked slowly forward so that the ponies could keep up with her without having to run.

“I can sense two Paladin energy signatures from you one of which I can identify as Shika’s, that and you look like a smaller exact copy of her.” The dragon said Dash stopped in her tracks in shock and Fluttershy had to nudge her so that she wouldn’t fall behind. They entered a large chamber that seemed to overlook a the main volcano shaft. Spread out along the edges of the cavernous were large ledges on top of which sat innumerable large dragons ranging in color everywhere from black to white. Directly across from their ledge sat a incredibly large golden dragon who was ten times the size of Ruthiel, when he saw them he looked up from the conversation that he was having with Cadance who was standing a few feet away from him.

“Welcome to my court Twilight Sparkle and companions my name is Parthensus and I am the king of the Dragon Council, now what did you wish to discuss?” Parthensus’s voice was an echoing rumble which thundered across the chamber, yet as impressive and awe inspiring as it sounded it was also remarkably friendly.

“My lord as you know my name is Twilight Sparkle star student to Celestia the Bringer of the Sun and I’m here to plead your assistance against a great enemy.” Twilight said keeping her voice respectful but strong.

“So I’d gathered.” Parthensus replied with a small grin, Twilight blushed. “Please go on.”

“It all started a month ago when my friend Pinkamena Diane Pie found Shepard here walking into the town of Ponyville where I live…” at the mention of Pinkie several of the dragons snorted with laughter and a slight smile touched Parthensus’s lips.

“We know Pinkie quite well.” He said drawing a look of surprise from Twilight

“…Anyways Pinkie brought Shepard to my library where I asked him some questions and it turned out that he was once a member of a species known as humans, he’d just finished fighting a long and bloody war and he’d sacrificed his life for the sake of the galaxy. Then a group of his crew showed up saying that they’d also died, the three others standing around Shepard are members of his crew. I wrote a letter to Celestia explaining all of this and she called us to Canterlot for a meeting, Shepard managed to annoy her but Luna managed to keep her from turning him into a pile of ash. We departed the castle with the intention of showing Shepard and his crew that had accompanied him the sights of Canterlot; unfortunately we were interrupted by an assassin who injured two of Shepard’s crew who are still in the hospital recovering. When we next saw Celestia she explained that somepony had been slowly destroying both her own and her sister’s minds and it was only through the intervention of Discord that she was able to avoid succumbing to the magic.” At this the dragons broke into scattered conversation.

“Lies, lies and slander I say!” yelled a griffins who alighted on perch to the right of Twilight’s group. “Dragons of the Council I beg you throw these lying ponies into the depths of the volcano!” Parthensus turned to gaze steadily at the griffin.

“I believe that you’ve already had your turn Blackbeak, as it is they have yet to accuse you of anything, in fact you seem unreasonably nervous.” Blackbeak froze his feathers ruffled uncomfortably under the combined stares of over three hundred dragons. “Continue your tale Twilight Sparkle” Parthensus said kindly returning his gaze to Twilight who nodded in thanks.

“We set off heading towards Ponyville but were warned by a friend that there were a group of griffins in position to ambush us outside of the city, luckily Celestia was so kind as to provide us with these guns and we were able to fight them off. After that we’ve been traveling around Equestria stopping the assassination of Celestia and keeping the griffins from destroying Ponyville. From an outside source we learned that the being known as the Illusive Man was the one behind all the hardships that have happened to Equestria in the last month. We set out planning to assault the Illusive Man directly but Discord advised us to seek your assistance instead, and so here we are sounded by enormous dragons.” Twilight finished with a smile, it got a few chuckles from the surrounding Dragons.

“An interesting tale, what say you in response Blackbeak?” Parthensus asked the disgruntled griffin.

“The same as before Lies and Slander, they are obviously here ruin the good name of the Illusive Man!” The griffin replied in outrage. Parthensus rolled his massive eyes.

“Blackbeak you’re sweating like a sapling pig, your eyes are scanning the room for any escape route and if I’m not mistaken you’re holding a small pistol that’s being aimed at my eye.” As he said the last part Blackbeak pulled the trigger sending a bullet flying towards the dragon king’s eye, without missing a beat the dragon kind grabbed the bullet out of the air with magic and sent it speeding back into the pistol that had shot it forcing it out of the griffin’s talons. “So let me see that’s two counts of attempted mind rape committed against physical goddesses who are responsible for the raising and lowering of the sun. Three attempts of unsuccessful assignation of royalty, the attack of a normally noncombat village, however many you’ve killed in your attempts to kill these ponies. Oh and the sheer stupidity to aim a deadly weapon at me, tell me have you ever heard of waking the sleeping giant?” The griffin nodded uncomfortably “Well in this case you’ve woken an army of them, and we weren’t sleeping that deeply to begin with.” Parthensus let out a short jet of fire immolating the griffin where he stood. He then turned to smile at Twilight and conspiratorially whispered “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks.”

AN

Just to let you guys know I’d planned on having it be Shining Armor and Cadance for a while, I just wanted to see the finale fist so I could make sure.

Revelation and Stupidity

“This is a joke, please for your own sakes tell me this is a joke.” Luna said as she looked at the scattered nobles who stood before her throne behind Blueblood.

“No Princess I’m happy to inform you that you are being evicted from the throne of the land by way of a populace uprising!” Blueblood said standing in front of her grinning like a moron.

“And just who makes up the members of this populace uprising?” Luna asked more curios than anything else.

“It is made up myself and my eight friends here, once you are disposed of we shall take power and rule the land of Equestria and lead it to a time of beauty and honor!” Blueblood responded, Luna sighed and turned to Arrow and Saber, they rolled their eyes.

“Did it accrue to you that I’m a god?” She asked him letting the question sink in, apparently it didn’t sink very far.

“Then we just won’t pray to you, and then you won’t have any power.” Blueblood told her smiling at his own intelligence.

“I expected this of you Blueblood but what’s gotten into the rest of you; surely you know this can’t end well?” She asked the other assembled nobles.

“Actually we’re here to see him fail magnificently my lady” said one of them Luna could see that he was barely holding in his laughter as Blueblood turned to look at him with shock in his eyes.

“But you said…” without needing to be asked Arrow and Saber had him with his face on the floor with a sword at his neck, it was Saber’s of course.

“Prince Blueblood I Princess Luna Raiser of the Moon sister to Princess Celestia Raiser of the Sun do herby wipe away the stain that you have been on the Royal Family. From this day forward you shall no longer be a member of the Royal Family, you shall be thrown onto the streets naked and bitless. If you refuse or struggle Saber there will decapitate you before you could think of something intelligent to do, not that I expect anything intelligent to come from your head of course.” Blueblood whined piteously but Luna was unmoved. “This was an attempt at treason, and the only reason that I haven’t had you killed is because it’s a waste of a bullet. As for the rest of you I appreciate comedy as much as the rest of you, but please try and keep it from getting to this point, dealing with idiots is very vexing.” She said turning to the other nobles who nodded and smiled on their way out. Arrow rejoined her both were confident that Saber could take care of Blueblood.

“You would think that he would have known better.” Arrow said absently filing with his sword.

“I can’t believe that he really tried it, oh well life goes on.” Luna replied turning to look out one of the large main windows. “Although I wish my sister would let us take the field, I think the enemy would surrender at the sight of us.”

“But where would the fun be in that?” Arrow asked rhetorically, Luna rolled her eyes.

***

Celestia was growing angry, they had killed several thousand griffins at this point and they kept on coming, the Illusive Man seemed to be able to conjure them out of thin air. Even with her troops as well trained as they had become she was suffering casualties, casualties that she couldn’t afford. Ash sat in a chair against a wall with Legion on her right going over various information about the enemies’ troop movements, which were becoming more and more predictable as they just threw their forces against Celestia’s base. General Lyra was talking to Arsenal about something most probably inane but Celestia allowed it; ponies had to have some stress release after all. Rarity was sitting at a table fiddling with yet another invention, Celestia wasn’t sure where the unicorn’s ideas were coming from but as long as they worked she didn’t really care.

“Celestia I have to ask you something.” Ash said looking up from her conversation with Legion.

“What is it Miss Williams?” Celestia asked looking up from her map.

“Why is there no alcohol anywhere in Equestria, I’m not really the heavy drinking type but I could really use a drink right about now?” Celestia sighed; she supposed it wasn’t fair to keep all of it to herself. Using her magic she grabbed a couple bottles of beer out of one of her hamerspace pockets and floated them to Ash.

“I keep it all in a rather small pocket dimension; it keeps the citizens from devolving into alcoholics, but every now and then I to need a drink.” Celestia said uncapping her own bottle and drinking half of it in one swallow.

“Princess you just won the royal popularity contest!” Ash said as she took a swig of her own, Arsenal came over and grabbed one out her hoof.

“It’s been to long since I had a drink myself.” He said.

“Celestia Princess I suggest not consuming too much, we are currently at war, on the battle line in fact.” Legion suggested tacitly, Celestia nodded and stopped after her first bottle.

“You’re right Legion; a slight buzz will have to do until this conflict is over.” Celestia told him.

***

“That’s great AJ now relax your shoulder and control your breathing.” James told AJ as he walked behind her. The target at the far end of the field was riddled with bullet holes, but the center had so far remained elusive.

“I’m tryin but this just don’t seem to be workin.” She said in annoyance as another spray of shells pounded into the target, all of which missed the center.

“Hmm…maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way…” James mused to himself “…How about this AJ, pretend that the gun is an extension of your back legs, and the bullets are your feet…”

“And how does that help me?” AJ asked irritably.

“Because I want you to think of shooting like you think of applebucking, it’s a natural movement that you can use to your advantage, try and get in that frame of mind then fire.” James told her, AJ sighed but concentrated on what James had said. To her surprise her next five shots were all directly centered in the middle of the target.

“Did ya see that?!” AJ yelled jumping into the air in excitement; James reached out and caught her before she slammed her head into the ground, AJ blushed and moved out of his arms. “Sorry bout that ah got carried away.” She said rubbing the back of her head and blushing.

“I don’t mind AJ, now let’s get back to shooting, I want you to be able to duplicate that nine out of ten times.” James told her smiling.

***

“Girls ever since this here war started we haven’t been doing much crusading.” Apple Bloom said to the two other Crusaders.

“Well what do you expect; we’ve been stuck in the school since it started?” Scootaloo asked her friend “Miss Cheerilee won’t let us leave.” She continued and gestured to Cheerilee who was currently sitting in one of the corners of the room a rifle in her hooves.

“I just can’t believe that the school had enough food here to feed us all for a month.” Sweetie Belle said.

***

Twilight was attending the Dragon King Parthensus in his room, the room itself was a work of magical art so precise that Twilight didn’t think that she’d ever be able to replicate it. The ceiling was made of molten lava that flowed in increasingly advanced patterns and yet somehow the sky was still clearly visible from underneath. The floor was decorated tastefully with spirals of gems and diamonds that glittered and reflected the light of the lava.

“How did you do this?” Twilight asked in amazement when she entered the room, the Dragon made a noncommittal hand gesture.

“Magic, and a great amount of time and knowledge.” He replied

“If you don’t mind me asking, why exactly did you summon me to talk to you?” Twilight asked the Dragon.

“Two reasons really, one I’ve heard that you’ve been raising my son…” Twilight gasped in amazement “…And I’ve heard that you’re doing a very good job so I wanted to congratulate you on that. Second I would very much like to see the book.”

“How did you know about the book?” Twilight asked Parthensus warily.

“Here’s the letter detailing its existence from your Princess.” Parthensus said reaching out into his hamerspace pocket and dropping a letter at Twilight’s hooves. She picked it up with her magic.

Dear Parthensus my student Twilight Sparkle is on her way to beg for your assistance in our war against a dimension hopping bastard please listen to her, oh and she has a book that I think you’ll be interested in.

it was Celestia’s writing alright, although Twilight wondered what a bastard was. She took the book out of her own hamerspace pocket and floated it up to the dragon, to her surprise the book got bigger so that the Dragon could easily look over it. Parthensus started to chuckle to himself.

“Well this is certainly a very nice find Twilight, unfortunately Pinkie already provided me with a copy, although mine isn’t able to adjust sizes at will.” Twilight nodded uncertainly, the Dragon changed the subject “Back to my son, I’m very interested in how he’s been turning out, Celestia hasn’t been sending me nearly enough progress reports since you moved to Ponyville and I’d like to know how he’s been doing.”

“He’s been doing very well sir, he makes an excellent research assistant and he keeps me from experiencing mental breakdowns over minor details so I’d say that he’s been a godsend.” Twilight told him, Parthensus nodded thoughtfully.

“So what’s this about him liking a unicorn?” Parthensus asked her, Twilight stiffened not sure how to answer.

“Don’t worry it isn’t a bad thing, except for when she eventually dies of old age of course, then again he’ll have you to comfort him for the next thousand years or so, so it shouldn’t be too bad.” The Dragon told her easily.

“What do you mean by that?” Twilight asked him in confusion.

“Oh right, spoilers, forget I said anything. Back to my son’s relation with the unicorn, how close are they?” Parthensus asked her.

“Not as close as he’d like, Spike is always trying to impress her but it always either turns out wrong, or she does her best to let her down easily. They’re still friends and he helps her with allot of her work but other than that…” Twilight trailed off lost in thought.

“Don’t worry Twilight, he’ll get over it eventually, then again he won’t really start to grow till he’s one hundred so it’s not like he could really do much with her.” Parthensus mused to himself, Twilight blushed she didn’t really need to hear about that.

“So um Your Majesty how are you going to help us in the war?” Twilight asked the great Dragon her nervousness returning.

“I’ll be sending two of my best commanders and a platoon of small troops to help Celestia and I’ll be sending my top commander to help you kill the Illusive Man, who if the rumors are right should provide quite the challenge.” Parthensus said scratching his scaly chin with his claw.

“Thank you sir, I’m sure that they’ll make great additions to the army.” Twilight said

“You may go if you wish Twilight; I’m going to call a small conference for the dragons that are going to be dispatched and I don’t want you to be accidentally stepped on.” Parthensus said with a smile. Twilight nodded her thanks and quickly left, her mind was spinning, she’d always known that there was something special about Spike but she’d never imagined that he was a prince. “Oh and Twilight don’t tell Spike about his heritage, I wouldn’t want the whole purpose of me sending him to you to be spoiled.” Parthensus called after her.

Foreshadowing level-brick

Shepard woke up from an interesting dream, something odd about fillies and foals was all that he could recall of it, that and a strange sense of things to come. Stretching he yawned enormously and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. All things considered from what he remembered from the dream it was much better then chasing a little dead boy through the woods, so he was happy with his dream all things considered. Scratching the back of his neck Shepard walked out of his room and into the main habitat that the Dragons had given them, he found Fluttershy and Dash talking to a large dragon known as Flamma Aurora; she was the dragon that Parthensus had attached to their little group.
Flamma was almost as big as Parthensus himself and colored a deep red that reminded Shepard of blood soaked rubies. The fact that it was Fluttershy who had started up their friendship wasn’t lost on anypony; Dash was talking to Garrus and Tali, something about the Wonderbolts. Thane was sitting alone at the table sharpening one of his knives and cleaning one of his pistols, when he saw Shepard he nodded before going back to his cleaning. Twilight was talking to Princess Cadance and they were in deep conversation, Shining Armor was standing on the balcony overlooking the great magma chamber of the volcano.

“Shepard, come join me I want to talk with you about some things.” Shining Armor said when he saw Shepard enter the room, with nothing better presenting itself Shepard made his way over to the stallion. “My sister says a lot about you, but I’d like to and forgive the expression hear it from the horse’s mouth.” Shining Armor told him when Shepard was next to him looking out over the magma chamber.

“What would you like to know?” Shepard asked, keeping his voice neutral. Shining Armor turned to regard him with his steely blue eyes.

“I would like to know what you intend to do with my sister.” Shining Armor said protectively.

“Keep her safe, make sure she doesn’t do something stupid, and give her mental advice and therapy if needed, the same thing I do with the rest of my crew and friends.” Shepard replied calmly, Shining Armor nodded.

“I don’t mean to come on strong; it’s just that my little sis has had issues in the past, and I don’t want some idiot throwing her mental health away and using her as a tool in a game.” Shining Armor said, there was a slight edge in his voice, Shepard raised an eyebrow.

“Has this happened before?” Shepard asked Shining, Shining almost nodded, but stopped in the middle of it.

“In a way, I love Princess Celestia, but she’s used Twilight to get things done that she should have been more then capable of doing herself. For example she vanished twice when other gods attacked, and at my weeding she was defeated by a low ranking demon queen, leaving Twilight and her friends to clean up the mess. Let’s just say that I don’t buy it.” Shining was looking back at the magma chamber now watching the lava bubble and flow.

“Don’t worry I will do everything in my power to keep your sister alive and mentally well during our upcoming engagement.” Shepard told him kindly, Shining nodded.

“I suppose that that’s the best I can ask of anypony in command.”

“I’ve been wondering something Shining, why can’t I feel the heat from the volcano, I’m no scientist but I seem to remember magma being hot enough to kill me through convection even this far away?” Shepard asked quickly changing the subject.

“It’s an old kind of magic, the Parthensus invented it himself and passed it along to others once he felt that they should have the power. Other than that I never asked. It’s more Twilight’s department of expertise then mine.” Shining replied easily turning to look at his sister with love in his eyes.

“I should have known; a wizard did it.” Shepard said with a sigh, Shining chuckled.

“A Dragon actually, but I guess the same principle applies either way.” Shining said with a slight smile. “Any other questions?”

“I was wondering when we’d be leaving.” Shepard said, Shining nodded, he’d been expecting it.

“In a day or so I would guess, Parthensus needs enough time to marshal the forces that he’s sending to help Celestia in the field before he’ll let you leave.”

“Why” Shepard asked in slight confusion.

“Because once the dragons have joined the fray this Illusive Man should be too preoccupied to notice your arrival on his doorstep.” Shining answered easily.

“We are brining Flamma with us, are you sure that we can make it without drawing his attention?” Shepard asked in skeptically.

“Flamma knows more than enough magic to keep her presence from being noticed, she’ll also be making your journey go much swifter.” Shining said and laughed when he saw the look on Shepard’s face. “I should get going Commander; I have some negations left to make with Parthensus and the wily old Dragon still knows his way around a legal document.” Shining said, he walked away leaving Shepard to look out across the chasm.

***

Fluttershy was talking to Flamma learning everything that she could about the old female, not that old implied weak of course.

“…and that’s how Parthensus and I repelled the first Paladins, it was quite a battle.” Flamma finished her tale, Dash let out a low whistle.

“Shika says told me that the original Paladins were more powerful than anything born in the last ten thousand years, I still don’t see how you could have beaten them.” Dash said skeptically.

“That’s because I’m a little over twenty thousand, young one, and Parthensus is even older then I am.” Flamma smiled down at her, Dash inhaled heavily.

“Then why are we coming, it sounds like you could beat the Illusive man with both arms behind your back?” Dash asked her, Flamma chuckled.

“Because it’ll be your job to draw him out, besides I’m sure something will stop me from actually doing much, it’s the way of history you see, and after twenty thousand years I know the rules of the universe.” Dash looked confused, but Fluttershy nodded in understanding.

“You’re constrained by some of the same limits that affect all incredibly high powered beings aren’t you? If you actually use most of your power you end up destroying everything around you.” Flamma regarded Fluttershy with newfound respect.

“Oh how I wish everybody at your age had your insight little one, the world would be a much better place.” The Flamma said, apparently lost in thought. Dash and Fluttershy crept away.

“Well that was interesting.” Dash said once they went back to the table.

***

Ex-Prince Blueblood wandered the streets of Canterlot looking for a meal, however everypony had heard what had happened to him and nopony was forgiving to the idiotic former prince. During the first night Blueblood had tried to get back into the palace, all that he’d been rewarded with however was a hard buck to the face. The next day he’d gone to a crowded market and stood up on a small box that he’d brought with him.

“Those who have slighted me will all pay! Maybe not this year, maybe not for ten years to come, but eventually all of Equestria will feel the wrath of PRINCE BLUEBLOO…” Unfortunately his yelling was interrupted by a well thrown tomato that hit him in the head sending him tumbling backwards into the street where he was pelted with vegetables. Seething with anger and rage he fled from the scene, managing to only fall three times despite the fact that this was the fastest he’d ever run in his life. The ponies around him were wondering why he was having trouble at a brisk walk.

***

Luna sat at her desk in her tower with her Arrow and Saber standing at the door to her back. After several hours Luna let out a slight cheer of happiness and flashed her two friends a radiant smile.

“I’ve done it!” She exclaimed to them.

“That’s great Luna, what is it?” Arrow asked her, saber quiet as usual only raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve successfully developed a spell that’ll allow me to see kernels at their natural level!” She said excitedly, Arrow sighed.

“Let me rephrase that, what I meant is, in layponies’ terms what does it do!”

“It means she can understand how things are put together, and how to take them apart.” To Arrow’s surprise it was Saber who answered for Luna.

“Yes that’s right Saber, how could you have known that?” Luna asked him in astonishment, Saber shrugged.

“My family has always been smart.” Luna fixed him with an odd smile and rolled her eyes.

“Fine don’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own. Anyways what Saber said is correct, being able to see kernels at their natural level allows me to play with the building blocks of creation; there are technically almost unlimited possibilities of things I can accomplish with this power!” Arrow and Saber looked at each other hard for a second.

“Not that I doubt you Luna, but this is starting to bring back bad memories.” Arrow said concern entering his voice. Luna waved away his concern with an idle flick of her hoof.

“Don’t worry I’ve learned my lesson about trying to kill my sister, besides covering the entire world in everlasting night wouldn’t work very well, everything would be dead within a few weeks no matter what kind of spell I used.” Luna told them, causing them to relax visibly.

“So just what are you going to do with this new spell?” Arrow asked Luna, she shrugged.

“I haven’t the faintest idea; Twilight will be able to think of something useful I’m sure.” Luna replied, both Arrow and Saber let out relived sighs they were glad that they’re friend wasn’t going through another mad scientist phase.

AN

Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, I’m juggling school stuff too and haven’t had much time tonight to write

Background Fluff

“Mordin now that we have the support of the Dragon Council is your device really necessary?” Miranda asked the pony standing before her.

“Necessary, of course it is necessary! Even with the Dragons’ support how else will you separate the parasite from its host? If not for my device this war is a pointless loss of life with no satisfactory winner!” Mordin said rapidly, Kaidan sighed and got more coffee.

“Are you sure that we even have to separate the two, it would be like killing two birds with one stone?” Kaidan asked once he’d returned to the table.

“You do not kill gods! The Illusive man isn’t a god no matter what he thinks; his partner however is very much a god. Thus it will be very difficult to kill him while she remains inside of him.” Mordin replied heatedly.

“Ok so how long until your device is complete?” Kaidan asked Mordin waved away his question.

“It already is. I’ll be sending it with you once you head out today.” Mordin said handing him a small device that looked like a small pistol.

“How do I use it?” Kaidan asked, although he was pretty sure he knew which end to aim down.

“Aim down the obvious end. Attempt a headshot, that’ll cause the most rapid method of desynchronizing their minds. If the head is not viable, aim for the chest, the target shouldn’t be hard to hit.” Mordin gestured to the door; Kaidan began his walk out, stopping to give Miranda a kiss before walked out the door.

“I hope you know what you were doing Mordin.” Miranda said Mordin shrugged.

“I don’t get a chance to kill gods every day, when I do I make sure I’m far away.” Miranda glared at him.

***

Discord and Screwball stood on the bluff overlooking the enemy positions, instead of thousands there were millions. The squirming mass of griffins seemed to Discord to be nothing so much as a pile of brown and black worms who weren’t worth his precious time. Screwball let out a nervous breath and Discord scowled at her slightly.

“There’s no reason to be frightened my student, they can’t hurt us while we reside in my head.” Discord said placing a comforting hand on his student’s shoulder.

“Master it isn’t fear that makes me anxious, it is paranoia. What do they possibly gain by throwing this many troops away, there has to be a trick that I can’t see.” She sounded concerned, which worried Discord greatly; no student of Chaos should be concerned over something as trivial as the future.

“I doubt that you see something that I cannot my student but please carry on with your observations.” Discord told her as he opened the ground underneath the approaching enemy which let out a satisfied belch once it had finished its meal.

“The more I think about this the worse it gets, master I suggest that we retreat to your castle immediately!” Screwball was very worked up over this; Discord decided he would humor her. With an errant thought they were back on top of the ramparts of his castle. To Discord’s surprise the air was filled with the cries of his jellyfish warriors as they launched exploding fireballs into the ranks of the enemy who had formed up outside the walls of his fortress.

“Well well it seems that your concern wasn’t as unnecessary as it first seemed.” Discord said while scratching his chin, with a hand gesture he released some of his other minions to inflict terror on the Cerberus goons massed before him. The plant monsters were his personal favorites, they ran at the enemy with big smiles on their faces bouncing happily as they went, but once they drew even with the enemy they exploded in large explosions of multicolored lightning. “You see Screwball if the enemy had managed to take this citadel then my mind would have no place to center itself. If that had happened I would have become even more insane, which as you know would be a very bad thing.” Discord said around the straw of a milkshake he had inadvertently created. Seeing the wounded look on her face Discord sighed and made one for her as well, she smiled happily and slurped up some of the peanut butter and dark chocolate banana milkshake.

“So master what do we do now?” She asked, although it sounded more like ‘o aster wh we d ow’ thanks to the fact that she didn’t bother to move the straw.

“Now my faithful student we see how long we can hold out against an innumerable foe that seems incapable of understanding how badly outmatched it is, this is going to be fun!” Then it rained molten chocolate as the enemy screamed in despair.

***

Celestia looked at the situation and let out a groan, her army was surrounded on all sides by Cerberus troops. This situation had been playing out over and over again over the last week, Celestia’s forces would start out and destroy a Cerberus army while barely losing a pony, and then the next day they would be surrounded by another three armies. The only thing keeping them from being massacred was a combination of Celestia’s magic and the tactical support offered by Arsenal, Ash, and Legion. Well that and the Wonderbolts who thanks to the training that Joker had given them were able to shred their way through the griffin air force like a hot knife through butter. Even so they just couldn’t keep doing this, the counterattacks took a heavy toll on the lives of her troops and they were getting weaker and weaker. What Celestia really wanted to know was where could the Illusive Man even get this many troops, she was certain that they’d shot, stabbed, and exploded their way through more griffins then there were in the Griffin Land itself.

“Celestia we have incoming on the western air zone, permission to engage?” Joker asked her from two feet away, his wings allowing him to hover in place with ease.

“Permission granted Joker, be fast.” Celestia replied turning her head back to the action, she heard EDI whisper to Ash.

“Jeff is always fast…” Ash looked at her for a few seconds “…That was a joke.” EDI clarified, Ash who had apparently been confused as to whether it was a joke or not before broke into laughter. Celestia joined in herself while she sent a bolt of solar energy through a column of enemy soldiers incinerating the entire column without showing any effort.

“Celestia Princess we have a problem.” Legion said.

“What is it Legion?” Celestia asked him in concern; she didn’t know how many more ‘problems’ she could take.

“There is a large aerial force incoming; they appear to be large dragons dressed in armor.” Legion said uncertainly, Celestia broke into a dazzling smile.

“That is our backup.” Celestia said, she rose into the air and yelled “Ponies of Equestria know this day that when we called for aid the Dragons of the Council answered!” out of the clouds descended dozens of dragons led by a monumental white one and a colossal black one, this may be overkill, but then again there’s no kill like overkill Celestia mused silently to herself as the dragons swept through the ranks of Cerberus ranks clearing them with tooth, claw, and fire.

AN
This is the final chapter before the finale which will either be released tonight or tomorrow, thanks for all of your support, oh and there will be a sequel at some point soonish

So long and thanks for all the

Flamma flew down towards the enemy ranks roaring in challenge as the griffins rose up to meet her. With a quick breath of fire she extinguished their lives leaving nothing to fall to earth but ash and bones. The ponies tied to her back were offering their own assistance by way of their guns but they werent making much of a dent and eventually decided to let Flamma handle it. The sheer number of griffins took Shepard by surprise, there were several thousand of them attacking Flamma, and there were several thousand more waiting in reserve.

This is hardly sporting; there are only twenty thousand of them! Flamma shouted to Shepards crew in-between blasts of blood red flame. Shepard found himself enchanted by her majesty as she spun and swooped through the air demolishing griffins by the dozens until she was hovering before the entrance of the volcano. This is where I leave you my friends, if I dont stay out here then youll be swamped under a horde of these flea-bitten mooks before you get ten feet. Shepard and his crew dismounted rapidly and wished Flamma luck before she launched herself back into the air.

Alright team we dont have much time for speeches but I want to say this. Ive been in Equestria for around a month, and I love it here, it isnt a perfect world but its as close of one as Ive ever encountered. The Illusive Man wants to destroy all of that, he wants to rape Equestria of all of her values, I wont let that happen! Today we fight not just for ourselves but for everypony, dragon, free griffin, and zebra in the land. Today we kill the Illusive Man the man who has almost destroyed two dimensions through his stupidity and arrogance, today we show him what happens when he messes with ponies! Shepard shouted the last word as he turned and shot a griffin who was running towards him in the head, the resulting blood splattered across his face. The group made their way down the first corridor until they encountered an enemy patrol, before Shepard could give an order Fluttershy charged her way through them quickly decapitating three before stabbing another in the stomach after eviscerating another lengthwise. The surviving griffins were too shocked to do much as Shepard and company took them down with well placed headshots.

Fluttershy wiped the blood and gore off of her sword on the feathers of one of the dead griffins before, she looked up and smiled, it would have been creepy if she wasnt on their side. They continued down the corridor till they met another patrol, Shepard used his shockwave to send them smashing into the ceiling where they impacted with a sickening crunch. A bullet whizzed by Shepards head and impacted against the wall behind him, Shepard looked up in time to notice a catwalk that ran above the corridor that they were in. Thane shot the shooter in the head before running and doing a vertical front flip that ended with him on the catwalk where he plunged his knife into the neck of another griffin. Thane rolled under the claws of another before blowing his head off with one of his two Carnifex pistols. Another griffin tried to get near him but Thane rolled under his guard sprang up to snap the griffins neck before kicking the dead body into another approaching griffin who stumbled backwards exposing his chest for five rapid-fire shots that landed within an inch of each other.

You carry on below while I keep them off you from up here! Thane yelled ducking under another talon slash, Shepard nodded and pressed forward sending griffins flying as he went. Tali held up a hoof telling them to stop.

Theyve got motion sensors set up going down this hallway, hold on a sec.

***

The Illusive Man wasnt happy, he wasnt happy at all. A large dragon was outside his volcano tearing bloody gashes through his forces and it was all he could do to supply more. Furthermore Shepard was inside his base wrecking havoc as he went. I told you, you should have put more automated guns along those hallways! She said from inside his head, the fact that an evil spirit called the Nightmare had taken up residence inside his head the moment hed come to Equestria still bothered him slightly. Suddenly one of his technicians held up a talon to get his attention.

Sir the motions sensors all over the base are going crazy, somepony must have hacked the! The Illusive Man grimaced.

***

Yes! Tali cried triumphantly I hacked their motion sensors! a bullet struck her in the chest but bounced off harmlessly. Tear out their eyes Chiktikka! Tali shouted as she launched her combat drone, Garrus rolled his eyes; Tali could be overly dramatic sometimes. Throwing caution to the wind Tali ran to help her drone demolish the enemy. She shot her way into the enemy formation turning all the while; she fired pointblank into the head of one before she turned and fired into the chest of another. A griffin tried to shoot her but she ducked and the griffins bullet slammed into one of his fellows, Tali smashed the butt of her shotgun into the offending shooters testicles causing him to squawk in pain before she casually electrocuted him. The other griffins began to back away, but Tali was upon them before they could get two feet. She emptied ten shots into one of the griffins before ducking under a dodging a claw that was coming directly towards her. Before she could kill the last griffin her hooves slipped on some of the blood and she fell over backwards landing on her back. The griffin stood over her preparing to smash his talon through her head but even as his claw was descending Garrus jumped forward and tackled him rolling the griffin onto its back before firing his sidearm into its face sending blood everywhere.

Thanks Garrus. Tali said as he helped her to her hooves, he kissed her on the cheek before they both caught up to Shepard who had pressed ahead. Even with Thane above them providing occasional fire support the enemy was still starting to wear down Shepards group. They were caught in a a particularly tight engagement, they managed to get completely surrounded, Shepard wasnt sure how long they could hold off the rush of griffins crowding them. Out of the blue Twilights horn exploded to life sending off sparks of magic in all directions, the griffins were pushed back from them by a purple field of magic, when the enemy touched the barrier they were burnt to ash by a strong shock of electricity. Twilights eyes were glowing purple as she sent out the field killing dozens of griffins and giving them back their breathing room, when the field vanished she sent out two fireballs that roared with unquenchable hunger that quickly devoured another twenty five griffins. Despite this display of power Twilight looked fine and completely rested.

Twi, how did you do that it was awesome! Dash shouted over her rifle before she shot forward and smashed a griffin in the face with a powerful kick.

My brother taught them to me! Twilight shouted back. Dash somersaulted in mid air and became a shooting, kicking whirlwind of death. The griffins around her didnt just die they exploded outwards in massive blasts of blood and gore as she tore through them. Fluttershy joined her and in incredible symmetry they cut a path through the griffins. Eventually they stopped in front of a massive doorway, from behind the doorway a voice that sounded like nothing so much as that of a reaper yelled.

SHEPARD COME AND MEET YOUR DEATH Garrus turned to Shepard and with a large smile on his face he said.

Well with a lovely invitation like that how could we not accept?

***

The battle still raged, even with the dragons considerable aid the enemy were simply to numerable for it to be decided within the first four hours of their arrival. Joker and the Wonderbolts flew holes through the enemy and grinded them to a bloody pulp, the feeling of the wind below his wings made him cry out with joy as the pure feeling of happiness hit him in the face, this is how he should have been born! A griffin dived at him but Joker easily barrel rolled to the left before snapping off a quick shot from one of the canons mounted on his wings, the Griffin spiraled away a bleeding broken piece of discarded garbage. Spitfire and Soarin joined him and together the three of them blasted through more griffins then they could count.

***

Legion and Ash were standing back to back surrounded by on all sides by the corpses of griffins who had sought to challenge them. A new wave charged forward yelling and squawking obscenities at the two soldiers, they quickly turned to meet each others eyes before they nodded and began to fire into the mass of feathered flesh. A griffin closed with Ash and she shot it in the face as Legion threw a throwing knife into one who had begun to aim at Ash with his rifle. The two spun and killed in companionable silence until all of their enemies were dead, then they smiled at each other and prepared for the next rush.

***

Apple Jack and James entered the fray yelling as they shot concentrated bursts from their assault rifles into the enemy with deadly precision killing dozens in a matter of seconds, carving a path to Rarity who was fighting with an odd sword made up of shards of diamonds.

Darling its marvelous to see you here, but Im rather busy showing these brutes how a lady treats those who disrespect her, Ill talk to you later! she flourished her sentence by quickly beheading a griffin and magically sending the head flying into another.

***

Celestia realized that this was her time to shine, and she did. Her entire body was bathed in liquid fire and she swept through the enemy like a lava flow. Suddenly above her a bright flash of light distracted her. Above the battlefield nonchalantly drinking a milkshake hovered Discord and his student Screwball, appearing next to him was her sister and her guards.

Tia dear I thought it best to bring along your sister, after all I think shes old enough to come to this party! Discord yelled down to her, every griffin on the battlefield stopped to look up at Discord who smiled a large maniacal smile and shouted Think you can fool me into wasting my time on astral projects did you? Well prepare to be surprised! together he and Screwball launched out balls of chaos magic which left terrible holes in the enemy, many of whom looked like they wanted to flee in terror. Celestia supposed that seeing your best friends turned into chocolate replicas could do that to somepony. So my dear I miss much? Discord asked her alighting behind her and with a bored gesture sending out a spray of toxic cotton candy flying into the mouth of a griffin charging her.

Not much, well weve been fighting for our lives, but you probably knew that. She said as she shot another wave of fire out and roasted dozens alive.

Do I smell chicken? Discord asked with a smile.

***

Luna have I ever told you how much I love our job? Arrow asked Luna as his foot forced its way through the back of a griffins skull with a small pop. Luna smiled, she herself was already coated from head to hoof in blood, but this was her element.

You may have mentioned it once or twice. Luna said while she delivered a blast of sheer cold into a platoon of griffins turning them instantly into ice where they began to melt rapidly.

Fighting is truly the best stress relief method, now if only Blueblood was here Arrow said as he drove his sword into an approaching griffins stomach.

Shut up and fight. Saber said as he diced his way through twelve enemy troops with a flourish of his sword, he wasnt named Saber for nothing.

***

This is worse than clinic duty! House yelled as he sewed a ponys stomach closed again. Liara rolled her eyes and blew another enemy away with a blast of her gun.

***

The first thing that hit Shepard was the heat of the room, the second was the fact that there were around eighty armed griffins aiming guns directly at his head, the third thing he noticed was the gigantic black dragon that stood behind them smiling evilly.

Shepard so nice to see you again, you know its been a long time, when was the last time we talked? Oh thats right its when you shot me! The Dragon yelled the voice of the dragon had the same reaper like quality, except there was a darker female undertone to it.

Well would you look who it is, Illusive Man howve things been, you know besides me killing you and all? Shepard asked him a large smile breaking out across his face, as the Illusive Man shook with rage.

Do you really think you can stop us Shepard? We are a god! The Illusive Mans voice had a decidedly more feminine quality to it now, Twilight, Dash, and Fluttershy gasped in surprised recognition.

Twilight its the Nightmare! Fluttershy yelled, she didnt sound frightened, she actually sounded exited.

Weve kicked you butt before whats to stop us from doing it again! Dash shouted at the dragon who chuckled.

Oh I dont know the fact that I have you surrounded? Is it the fact that there are only three elements here? Oh I remember its because Im going to kill you! Then Im going to bring about eternal night and rule this little world! Before things could go any farther Garrus broke down in laughter. Why are you laughing foolish pony, does your imminent death amuse you?

Im laughing because your plan is flawed on so many levels that Im surprised that you can even talk. If you bring about eternal night every plant in the world will die, everything that eats or in some ways gets energy from plants will die. The only things that youll be ruling over will be some lichens, cave fish, and possibly spiders. When Garrus finished the dragon let out a roar and spat a large fireball directly at his head, Tali tackled him to the ground and the fireball past over their heads.

Why can you never shut up?! Tali yelled as the griffins opened fire; luckily Twilight used her new elctrofield attack to kill them all leaving nothing standing between them and the Dragon.

You think that you can kill us Shepard? Even if our false shadow soldiers are all dead we can simply fashion more, WE ARE GODS! The dragon screamed in anger and breathed out a great burst of fire at them.

So you keep telling me. Shepard yelled back as he ducked behind one of the destroyed computer consoles, even so he could feel the heat from the flames. Shepard heard a great battle cry and looked up in time to see Fluttershy fly into the air and charge directly at the Dragons head, her sword held high. She smashed into the Dragons head with the force of a bullet stabbing her sword deep into its forehead, the Dragon just laughed and plucked her up by her wings.

Youre the one who killed Leng arent you? Your bones will make an excellent trophy! The Dragon said holding Fluttershy in front of his face and preparing to immolate her in flames, before he got the chance however Dash flew by and grabbed Fluttershy out of his giant fingers. Um Shika could you take over; I think Im ready to use my powers to their full potential? Dash asked hoping that her grandmother would finally be able to help. Thats when Dash felt her brain move to the passengers seat. Shika/Dash placed Fluttershy behind one of the consoles before gazing back at the Dragon with hatred in her eyes. Dash flapped her wings and sent out a storm of power at the Dragon who was buffeted by wind and lightning along with hail. Her eyes became glowing rainbows as she rocketed towards the Dragon and kicked it in the stomach sending it stumbling backwards into the far wall. She followed this up with a haymaker which let off a burst of powerful electricity as it struck. The Dragon however was not injured and it simply swatted Shika/Dash out of the air with a casual slap that sent her plowing into the side of the volcano causing lava to erupt from the spot. Shika/Dash used her magic to cool the lava before she streaked back towards the Dragon.

Shepard, should I feel guilty that Im hiding back here taking potshots? Garrus yelled across to Shepard as he shot another bullet into the dragon.

Shut up Garrus! Tali yelled forcing him down as another fireball passed over his head.

This isnt working; nothing that we have has touched him! Shepard yelled as Shika/Dash smashed into the ground next to him.

We need a way to separate the Nightmare from the Dragon, once we do that we can kill either one! Twilight yelled as she sent a blast of magic at the dragon, it stopped several feet in front of him. Behind them there was a loud POP, they turned to look and saw Pinkie, Kaidan, AJ, and Rarity standing there, Pinkie was smiling happily.

Hi guys I thought now would be a good time to show up; you know a good old fashioned dues ex machine! Pinkie said nodding to Kaidan who fired a weird looking pistol directly into the Dragons head. The dragon let out a roar of pain and torment as Mordins projectile rammed into its skull, slowly a black smudge began to ooze out of the Dragons head.

You may have separated me from my host but I can still kill all of you! The smudge shouted evilly, Pinkie giggled.

No you cant, we have plot armor so thick that a Deathstar main gun couldnt pierce it, besides girls its time to use the elements! Pinkie shouted, Twilight and her friends began to glow until suddenly they shot a rainbow of light straight into the nightmare, it died screaming. The Illusive Man roared in anger and charged. Fortunately Garrus and Thane both shot powerful sniper rounds into its eyes. The mighty beast fell forward, its head landing in front of Shepard.

ShepardyoullneverwinIllkillyouifitsthelastthingId he was going to say do, but Shepard shot him in the eye with his shotgun point blank.

No you wont.

***

One year after that Ash and I had you, Hackett, and five years later we had you Wrex, and thats the story of how I came to Equestria. Shepard finished reading to his two children.

But dad what happened to all of your friends and crew members? You never gave any in story closure! Shepard chuckled

They live right next door, besides Im sure youll learn what happened next eventually... now its time for bed. His two sons looked sad but sighed; when their dad told them to do something they did it. Shepard smiled and took a drink of his glass; it felt like hed been reading for five weeks straight. Suddenly Pinkie appeared in a hole floating in space in front of him; Shepard raised an eyebrow and asked What are you doing Pinkie? Pinkie shook her head and then loudly yelled

FISH!

AN

And so marks the end of my first completed fan fic, the sequel will be out soon so watch for it, I may also announce it by adding a reminder in here so thats what it means if the chapter notice goes off. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it, btw this is just a random request but could someone make a picture of all the main good characters for me?

Golden

Wrex and Hackett faced each other panting, Hackett sent out another flurry of spells all of which Wrex easily knocked to the side with a small shield spell. Hackett held up his hoof in the general sign that they were done and they both lowered their horns.

“Wrex it’s time we had a little talk brother.” Hackett began as he sat down on one of the room’s bed and patted the mattress next to him, taking the hint Wrex sat down next to him.

“What is it Hackett?” Wrex asked cocking his head to the side, he and his brother didn’t really talk that much, that’s what he had Flash for.

“Well you know I’m leaving for my guard training tomorrow, and you’re twelve now so I think it’s time for dad to tell you the full truth.” Hackett told his little brother solemnly.

“The truth about what Hackett?” Wrex asked inquisitively.

“The true ending of the story about what happened when mom, dad, and the rest first got to Equestria.” Hackett said Wrex frowned.

“Wait what. You mean dad lied to us?” Wrex asked uncertainly.

“Yeah, but it’s not as bad as you think. He just gave us a lighter version of it; he didn’t want us having nightmares.” Hackett said with a smile.

“Alright, so what do I do?” Wrex asked his brother.

“Just go up and tell him you’re ready for the golden ending.” Hackett told him with a slight smile.

***

Wrex walked down the stairs from his room, his father Ethan Shepard’s voice drifted up to him from the main room. He was talking to Serina the house’s AI who had somehow been provided by Aunt Pinkie.

“…So we still don’t know…” His father’s voice said worriedly.

“That is correct Shepard, now your son has just finished walking down the stairs and is now wondering what we were talking about…” Serina trailed off with a slight smile before her avatar vanished leaving Shepard alone at the table in the middle of the room.

“Hey Wrex what’s up?” Shepard asked when he turned to see which son had come down.

“Dad, Hackett told me that I need to ask you about ‘the golden ending’” Wrex told his father who nodded in thought.

“I suppose it is time that I tell you…”

***
Shepard stood in front of a massive steel doorway, there was a large pile of griffin corpses stacked behind him and the blood was starting to leak towards him.

“So what do you we’ll find in there?” Garrus asked his friend.

“All we know is that the Illusive Man is in there, other than that everything is unknown.” Shepard replied with a shrug.

“Whatever it is we’re ready, Right Shy?” Dash said to her marefriend who nodded silently and drew her sword. A panel next to the door suddenly turned green and Tali rose from where she’d been kneeling in front of it.

“That did it, I’m surprised at how high tech the lock was but it should be open now, although I’m guessing that it’ll shut again the second that we’re through.” Tali said with a slight smile crossing her face as she pretended to dust her hooves. Twilight looked up from the book that she’d been flipping through.

“Yes, the book is referring to this as something called the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the doors will definitely close the second that we’re through.” The purple unicorn said looking at the doors with a slight frown. “Whatever the case it’s time to end this once and for all.” Twilight said determinedly, Shepard nodded and pressed on the open button.
They entered the room and as predicted the doors slammed shut behind them with a deafening crash of steel. The room before them was dark and only illuminated by several streams of lava that flowed down the walls, a large object moved in the background creating a dark shadow. Scattered around the room were several terminals that Shepard thought would make perfect cover spots.

“Hello Shepard, it’s nice to see you again.” Rumbled the thing creating the shadow, Shepard almost jumped at the unexpected noise but managed not to.

“The Illusive Man I presume.” Shepard said upholstering his shotgun.

“The very same.” The being in the shadows said with a casual air. “I would suggest putting that toy away, it won’t hurt me.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll keep it out.” Shepard replied with a grim smile.

“Oh how droll, you really think I’m afraid of you…oh Shepard you should never have come here, and it’s my job to make you realize this. I feel honored!” The Illusive Man said with quiet laughter.

“For someone who talks big you certainly like to hide in the shadows.” Dash said with a smirk, her remark drew more laughter.

“Oh I’m not hiding; I just want this little moment to last. You see this is my first real stepping stone to taking over this little world and I want to savor it as long as I can.” The Illusive Man said with something approaching glee entering his deep voice.

“You’re a little slow on the uptake aren’t you Illusive Man?” Garrus asked him “Even if we die there’s a full army of staunch soldiers out there determined to kill you, and that’s not even taking Celestia, Luna, Discord, and the Dragon Council into account.” Garrus told him with a smug grin, the Illusive Man’s laughter shook the room.

“You truly believe that any of you pests can stop me? Celestia and Luna are nothing; Discord is an inconvenience nothing more probably less, and as for the Council… well I think that between my army of false griffins and myself we should manage to pacify them once I’ve taken care of that king of theirs.” The Illusive Man said arrogantly.

“We’ve been talking long enough, and frankly I’m tired of hearing your voice…” Shepard said as he sent out a powerful shockwave towards the shape in the darkness.

“As you wish Shepard.” The Illusive Man said. Lights all around the room turned on and Shepard was slightly surprised to find a large black and silver dragon sprawled across the floor in front of them. Shepard’s shockwave hit the dragon who just sat there as the wave rolled over it doing nothing more then throw up several rocks which fell to the floor and clattered softly as they landed. The dragon stretched and turned to regard Shepard and his party with a bored look. “If that’s all you have to give me Shepard this’ll be over quicker than I thought.” The dragon said with a rumble before he sent out a large streak of fire, thinking quickly Shepard rolled forward towards one of the computer terminals to take cover. Unfortunately he was a few seconds to late and his flanks were now screaming in pain thanks the very serious burns he’d received from the flame. Somehow the flames had completely ignored his armor and gone straight into his skin.

“Hey Shepard I knew Ash always said you had a hot ass, but I think this is taking it overboard.” Garrus called from his cover spot a few feet away, apparently the Illusive Man had only been aiming at Shepard because all the others had already found cover spots.

“Shoot him first then make jokes!” Shepard shouted back as he applied medigel to the affected area and sighed with relief as the gel took effect. While they’d been talking Fluttershy had charged the dragon with her sword held high above her head yelling a battle cry. The Illusive Man lifted up one of his hands and blocked the swing with an easy flick of his claws before swatting at her. Fluttershy didn’t let it stop her though and she fought off the sudden onslaught of claws parrying and deflecting the claws with her blade. After several minutes of fighting Fluttershy landed a solid hit and one of the Illusive Man’s talons fell to the ground with a thud, black blood leached from the wound and the Illusive Man roared in anger and spewed fire at Fluttershy. Before the flames could reach Fluttershy Dash zoomed in and grabbed the yellow pegasus pulling her out of the way of the incoming flames.

“This changes nothing Shepard; you cannot begin to imagine the power that I have at my dispos…” The Illusive Man was cut off mid sentence by a sniper shot from Garrus that slammed sharply into the dragon’s forehead causing a small hole to appear that bled profusely. “Oh you’re first then Archangel.” The Illusive Man said plunging his talons down to encircle Garrus in their grasp before lifting the struggling pony up to eyelevel.

“Try me you scaly fu…” Garrus was cut off as the Illusive Man began to squeeze his chest between two oversized fingers causing Garrus to gasp in pain.

“Go for the eyes!” Tali called launching her combat drone that as instructed shot a spark of electricity towards the dragon’s eyes. The Illusive Man roared in pain and threw Garrus towards the far wall where he impacted with a sickening crunch. The Illusive Man turned his baleful eye towards Tali and he sucked in his breath in preparation to unleash a torrent of fire. Shepard however beat him to the punch and sent out a sudden wave of biotics to pull Tali towards him. The fire swept over the place where Tali had recently vacated and melted the computes to slag.

“Hey ugly try me on for size!” Dash yelled as she kicked the Illusive Man in the jaw with a flying buck that sent his head flying back to impact against an overhanging stalactite which shattered into a million pieces and rained down on the ponies. The dragon turned back to Dash and snarled fiercely sending out twin jets of flame from his nostrils that fanned out to the side of his face.

“I think I’m going to eating rainbows tonight…” The dragon said with a malicious grin and snapped his jaws down over the cyan pegasus. Fluttershy let out a scream of rage and charged the dragon who knocked her aside with a effortless backhand. The yellow pony smashed into the ground and her sword clattered to the ground. “And now for the other three…” The Illusive Man said turning to look at Shepard, Tali, and Twilight who was rapidly flipping through pages of her book trying to find a solution to their problem. “...you know you really should pay more attention to your betters!” The Illusive Man roared and he shot a jet of flame at Twilight who unconsciously raised a barrier over herself to deflect the flames. The dragon grumbled in annoyance but turned away from the unicorn with a shrug, he had all the time in the world to kill her, how much trouble could one unicorn possibly be?

Shepard charged, he didn’t care he’d just seen three of his party slaughtered before his eyes and he wanted to make the arrogant dragon pay dearly for it. The dragon swept his claws at Shepard but the Commander nimbly danced under them before firing several shots of his Carnifex into the hand as it passed by. The Illusive Man screamed in rage and unleashed a stream of fire at him but Shepard activated his Charge so that he materialized several feet in front of where the flames impacted. The Illusive Man’s claws made another pass but Shepard jumped onto them and ran up the arm only narrowly avoiding sliding off the slippery surface. The Illusive Man’s other hand came towards him but Shepard fired off a burst of biotics that forced it away. Instead of continue that approach the Illusive Man simply slammed his arm into the wall behind him smashing Shepard against it, through sheer willpower Shepard clung on.

The Illusive Man grabbed the half conscious pony between two talon points and hung him in front of his face. “You aren’t very good at this are you Shepard?” The dragon asked him with a sadistic smile as he prepared to toss Shepard into his mouth, Tali charged forward and shot several rounds of shotgun into the dragon’s feet causing him to switch his attention long enough to send out his clawed foot in a viscous kick that sent Tali sprawling. “So this is how it ends Shepard?” The Illusive Man asked the pony between his talons. “I suppose I thought it would prove more enthralling, oh well no matter.” The dragon held Shepard above his mouth and prepared to drop him. Suddenly the dragon’s chest burst open in a large shower of blood and gore, Dash emerged panting heavily literally coated in blood.

“Didn’t, anypony, ever, tell, you, rainbows, are, spicy?” Dash asked before she fainted in a pool of dragon blood. The Illusive Man fell backwards and landed with a crash sending Shepard flying, Twilight looked up from her book long enough to grab him and deposit him safely before she turned back and began to turn through the pages with a greater frequency.
“Well that was fun…” Garrus said as he pulled himself out of his crater in the wall. “…thank the gods for this armor” He said as he staggered over to Tali to make sure she was ok, Shepard did the same to the others.

***

Celestia looked at the situation and let out a groan, her army was surrounded on all sides by Cerberus troops. This situation had been playing out over and over again over the last week, Celestia’s forces would start out and destroy a Cerberus army while barely losing a pony, and then the next day they would be surrounded by another three armies. The only thing keeping them from being massacred was a combination of Celestia’s magic and the tactical support offered by Arsenal, Ash, and Legion. Well that and the Wonderbolts who thanks to the training that Joker had given them were able to shred their way through the griffin air force like a hot knife through butter. Even so they just couldn’t keep doing this, the counterattacks took a heavy toll on the lives of her troops and they were getting weaker and weaker. What Celestia really wanted to know was where could the Illusive Man even get this many troops, she was certain that they’d shot, stabbed, and exploded their way through more griffins then there were in the Griffin Land itself.

“Celestia we have incoming on the western air zone, permission to engage?” Joker asked her from two feet away, his wings allowing him to hover in place with ease.

“Permission granted Joker, be fast.” Celestia replied turning her head back to the action, she heard EDI whisper to Ash.

“Jeff is always fast…” Ash looked at her for a few seconds “…That was a joke.” EDI clarified, Ash who had apparently been confused as to whether it was a joke or not before broke into laughter. Celestia joined in herself while she sent a bolt of solar energy through a column of enemy soldiers incinerating the entire column without showing any effort.

“Celestia Princess we have a problem.” Legion said.

“What is it Legion?” Celestia asked him in concern; she didn’t know how many more ‘problems’ she could take.

“There is a large aerial force incoming; they appear to be large dragons dressed in armor.” Legion said uncertainly, Celestia broke into a dazzling smile.

“That is our backup.” Celestia said, she rose into the air and yelled “Ponies of Equestria know this day that when we called for aid the Dragons of the Council answered!” out of the clouds descended dozens of dragons led by a monumental white one and a colossal black one,this may be overkill, but then again there’s no kill like overkill Celestia mused silently to herself as the dragons swept through the ranks of Cerberus ranks clearing them with tooth, claw, and fire.

***
The battle still raged, even with the dragon’s considerable aid the enemy were simply to numerable for it to be decided within the first four hours of their arrival. Joker and the Wonderbolts flew holes through the enemy and grinded them to a bloody pulp, the feeling of the wind below his wings made him cry out with joy as the pure feeling of happiness hit him in the face, this is how he should have been born! A griffin dived at him but Joker easily barrel rolled to the left before snapping off a quick shot from one of the canons mounted on his wings, the Griffin spiraled away a bleeding broken piece of discarded garbage. Spitfire and Soarin joined him and together the three of them blasted through more griffins then they could count.

***
Legion and Ash were standing back to back surrounded by on all sides by the corpses of griffins who had sought to challenge them. A new wave charged forward yelling and squawking obscenities at the two soldiers, they quickly turned to meet each other’s eyes before they nodded and began to fire into the mass of feathered flesh. A griffin closed with Ash and she shot it in the face as Legion threw a throwing knife into one who had begun to aim at Ash with his rifle. The two spun and killed in companionable silence until all of their enemies were dead, then they smiled at each other and prepared for the next rush.

***
Apple Jack and James entered the fray yelling as they shot concentrated bursts from their assault rifles into the enemy with deadly precision killing dozens in a matter of seconds, carving a path to Rarity who was fighting with an odd sword made up of shards of diamonds.

“Darling it’s marvelous to see you here, but I’m rather busy showing these brutes how a lady treats those who disrespect her, I’ll talk to you later!” she flourished her sentence by quickly beheading a griffin and magically sending the head flying into another.

***
Celestia realized that this was her time to shine, and she did. Her entire body was bathed in liquid fire and she swept through the enemy like a lava flow. Suddenly above her a bright flash of light distracted her. Above the battlefield nonchalantly drinking a milkshake hovered Discord and his student Screwball, appearing next to him was her sister and her guards.
“Tia dear I thought it best to bring along your sister, after all I think she’s old enough to come to this party!” Discord yelled down to her, every griffin on the battlefield stopped to look up at Discord who smiled a large maniacal smile and shouted “Think you can fool me into wasting my time on astral projections did you? Well prepare to be surprised!” Together he and Screwball launched out balls of chaos magic which left terribly mutated holes in the enemy, many of whom looked like they wanted to flee in terror. Celestia supposed that seeing your best friends turned into chocolate replicas could do that to somepony. “So my dear I miss much?” Discord asked her alighting behind her and with a bored gesture sending out a spray of toxic cotton candy flying into the mouth of a griffin charging her.

“Not much, well we’ve been fighting for our lives, but you probably knew that.” She said as she shot another wave of fire out and roasted dozens alive.

“Do I smell chicken?” Discord asked with a mischievous smile.

***
“Luna have I ever told you how much I love our job?” Arrow asked Luna as his foot forced its way through the back of a griffin’s skull with a small pop. Luna smiled, she was already coated from head to hoof in blood, but this was her element.

“You may have mentioned it once or twice now that I think about it.” Luna replied while she delivered a blast of sheer cold into a platoon of griffins turning them instantly into ice where they began to melt rapidly.

“Fighting is truly the best stress relief method, now if only Blueblood were here…” Arrow said as he drove his sword into an approaching griffin’s stomach.

“Shut up and fight.” Saber said as he diced his way through twelve enemy troops with a flourish of his sword, he wasn’t named Saber for nothing.

***

“This is worse than clinic duty!” House yelled as he sewed a pony’s stomach closed, again. Liara rolled her eyes and blew another enemy away with a blast of her gun. She’d been charged with keeping the sarcastic Dr. alive and by the Goddess she was going to, but nothing said she had to like it.

***

Kaidan galloped towards the volcano, he’d made unbelievably good time all things considered. When he got closer however he was confronted by an awesome sight, sitting on the ground was a large dragon eating a mountain of griffins.

“Oh hello there, I hope you’re not here to fight me, you don’t look like you’d taste very good.” The dragon called from where she sat.

***

Commander Shepard gathered his squad together and headed d for the exit of the chamber luckily everypony had been fine after a quick application of medigel. Suddenly evil laugher echoed off the walls of the room from the corpse of the Illusive Man. Shepard turned and to his surprise found much to his horror the dragon was regaining its feet. The dragon was glowing with dark energy and when it spoke its voice was layered with a dark undertone.

“That was a good one-liner Dash, I’ll have to remember to chew my food from now on” The dragon said with an evil grin in his eye.

“You’ve wasted enough time talking to them, kill them and be done with it!” another voice ordered, Twilight, Dash, and Fluttershy gasped they recognized that voice.

“Nightmare, I thought we destroyed you.” Twilight growled in anger.

“Simple filly, one does not just kill an immortal being of such power that its power eclipses the power of the gods of the universe themselves!” The Nightmare replied, Shepard who at this point was very tired decided to end the conversation. Focusing all his biotic might he pulled down several stalactites which slammed into the dragon’s head, much to Shepard’s surprise they disintegrated on impact.

I told you earlier Shepard you can’t kill me!” The dragon roared before it spewed out flame directly at Shepard who found himself beneath a purple field.

“I think not…” Twilight said her voice becoming slightly dark. “…are you aware of the trouble you’ve forced me to go through? I’ve had to become a killer, and I’ve found that I hate it, but as much as I hate it, I hate you far more!” Twilight unleashed a blindingly powerful spell and shot it directly at the dragon, who took it full in the chest without flinching. Twilight followed up with several bursts of ice and several lightning bolts but nothing affected the dragon. Eventually Twilight ran out of magic

“Oh dear, was that the best you could do, didn’t anypony ever tell you that dragons are immune to magic?” The Nightmare asked with a sneer. Dash meanwhile had stopped paying attention.

“Shika please tell me my powers are available” Dash asked the old Paladin desperately.

“As a matter of fact they are, oh and bonus points earlier for your little stunt I just love the look on things’ faces when you burst through their stomachs.” The dead Paladin told her with a mental chuckle. Dash began to glow as she was enveloped in a rainbow of colors drawing the attention of everything in the room. When the light faded Dash hovered in place, her mane had gotten longer and fell over her shoulder with casual grace and a smile appeared on her face.

“You think you can hurt my friends and get away with it?” Dash asked rhetorically. “Well actually you see that’s not how it works; the way it works is I kick your sorry flank so hard that you crap out your mouth.” Dash told the dragon before she charged it. She started with a powerful uppercut that sent the dragon’s head flying upwards until it smashed against the ceiling. She then launched a trio of blue lightning bolts out of her hooves which sent him flying across the room till he crashed into the opposite wall. The dragon pulled itself off the wall and charged her but Dash was having none of that, with a simple move Dash bucked it in the stomach sending it rolling back across the chamber floor.

“Hey Shepard do you ever get the feeling that it’s really unfair that we can’t do this kind of stuff?” Garrus asked his friend as the beat down continued.

“All the time…” Shepard replied as he watched in fascination as Dash swung the dragon by his tail and sent him tumbling into a wall. The fight continued for several minutes until Dash suddenly stopped glowing.

“Oh sh…!” She yelled as the very angry dragon grabbed her and began to crush her slowly.

“Now where did that actual challenge go? Oh well I can always just kill you instead!” the Dragon roared.

***

A very blood covered Kaidan suddenly ran into the room and saw the sight of a dragon squeezing a pony to death while Shepard and several others shot at it and a yellow pegasus tried in vain to cut off its fingers with a sword. Without otherwise announcing his presence Kaidan took aim and fired the small device that Mordin had spent years making. The pistol like device shuddered before it shot an evil looking green beam out of its barrel which impacted against the dragon’s hide. The dragon screamed in rage as the green beam washed over it and a black energy detached itself from the monster. The dragon immediately began to fall apart, apparently the only thing holding it together had been the black energy. Kaidan smiled this was much better then waiting around in his room on the ship ever had been.

***

Shepard watched in amazement as the dragon crumbled and the Nightmare revealed itself.

You think that you’ve won? Bah I’ll be back!” it screamed before it vanished.

***

“And you know everything after that.” Shepard told Wrex who nodded. Pinkie suddenly appeared.

“Come on Sheppard you took out the part where I saved the day!” She whined.

“Pinkie how many times do I need to ask you to knock before you burst into my house?” Shepard asked the pink pony who shook her head.

“I’m not talking to you Shepard. Seriously how could you cut me out like that?” Pinkie asked nothing plaintively. “Fine be that way, but I like the original way more!” Pinkie said before she vanished leaving a very confused Shepard and his son to wonder what in the world she’d been talking about.