“Now,” I say as I regain my feet, no easy task with my arms still restrained, “where were we?”

Silence. Nopony moved, nopony really even breathed. I know I have the ability to kill a room, but this was ridiculous.

“Uh, how about that smoke now?” The words had barely left my mouth before Celestia was a blur of motion. I barely dodged her first swing by the width of an ass hair.

“Careful where you swing that thing,” I say ducking another wild swing, “you might put someone's eye out.”

“Shut up!” screamed Celestia as I dodge yet another swing. “Why won't you just die quietly? Can't you see it's for the best? This is the only way that I can protect Luna!”

“Protect her? From what!?!” I say, barely side stepping a wild swing.

“From you! I almost lost her once to your corruption, I won't allow it again!” Her swing drove me backwards and, like an insult from on high, I tripped over my own feet. Yeah, the great and master ass-kicker, put on his ass by his own miss step.

“Ahhh,” she screamed with a downward strike. I barely got scooted back in time as the blade embedded itself in the wood of the platform less than an inch from my crotch.

“I know I haven't seen them in a long time, but that's just not right,” I shoot back. I know I should have kept my damn mouth shut but sometimes you just have to say it. This probably wasn't one of those times as when she drew it back I could see the fury in her eyes and the little bit of foam at corners of her mouth.

“Shut up!” she screamed as she drove the tip of her sword straight for my face. With nowhere to go and little hope of dodging this blow I could only watch as my end came at me. It's funny, throughout my entire adult life people had been trying to kill me and every time all it did was piss me off and make me return the favor. But here, now, I just felt... cold. I'm really not sure why, maybe I really had made peace with the end in that dungeon cell or maybe it was because I knew that I had failed. I don't really know, nor will I really ever know as the tip of the holy blade stopped just short of my face, wrapped in a deep blue aura.

“Rider?” came a tentative voice from beside me. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, it's me,” I say turning to look at the princess of the night. If I had lips, or a face for that matter, I would have smiled but given my current state all I could do was nod. I guess she got the gesture as I found myself with her wings and forelegs wrapped around me.

“Rider, I thought I had lost you forever,” she said as I began to feel flashes of steam as tears met flames, “All those failed searches of our old castle, all the time spent searching through ancient archives, all those expeditions I sent Daring Do on to find you, only to get no closer to finding you. I feared the worst and yet here you are, in the last possible place I would expect you to be.”

“It's okay Kiddo, I'm here now.” It's not the smoothest thing I've ever said to someone in tears, but it's the best I had given the circumstances.

“Luna, step away from that thing.” I knew our little moment couldn't last forever.

“Tia, what do you...” said Luna as she turned to look at her sister. It didn't take her long to figure out what was going on.

“I said; get away from that monster, Luna. I will not lose you to it again.”

“Lose me to it? Tia, that's not what happened. I took a part of him into myself so that I could take over and fulfill his duties until I could convince you to free him. He is no more a threat than you or I.” I beg to differ, but I figured it would be far wiser to not get into that one.

“Lies! Even the mere sight of it brings you back under its sway, I cannot allow this to continue. Demon Hunters, take my sister into custody. I want her locked in her chambers until I can end this.”

“Like hell they are,” I say, forcing myself back onto my feet, “if they so much as lay a hoof on her it will be the last mistake that they ever make.”

“You see Luna, this thing would harm those entrusted with our personal protection. It is a menace and needs to be destroyed!”

“Fuck you too, you old nag!”

“Tia! That is not what he said and you know it! And Rider, I would very much appreciate it if you didn't talk to my sister in such a way.”

“Demon Hunters take my sister away; she is clearly out of her mind.”

“Ignore that order, Demon Hunters. We are not finished talking with our sister.”

“You have no authority here Luna; they answer directly to me and me alone. Now, get Luna out of here.”

“Um, Princess,” came the voice of Twilight from far closer than it should have been to this sisterly spat. “I think we have bigger problems than the Rider right now.” The nervousness in her voice was enough to break up our little... discussion.

A quick look around told myself, and likely anypony with half a brain, that we were about to get hit with a massive shit storm. Let me set the stage for you, first the Princesses and I were currently standing on a raised platform in the middle of a small crowd of ponies. On this platform with us are the Demon Hunters and a few guards, of which there are far fewer than when I was first brought out, who are now arranged in a circle around Twilight and her friends. And then there is the crowd, I don't think I've ever seen that many black cloaks in all my life. What was once a crowd of random onlookers had, over the course of our little show turned into a small horde of cloaked figures, some of which definitely weren't ponies. The eeriest part of all was that they didn't make a sound; they just stared at us from under their hoods.

“Friends of yours?” asked Hammerstrike from beside me.

“No friends of mine. Apart from Luna and Perfect, all my friends are dead.”

“Rider, any ideas on what to do?” asked Luna.

“Yeah, what's the most secure location in the castle?”

“The throne room,” answered Celestia, much to my surprise.

“Perfect, we'll head there on my signal. Care to cut me loose?”

“No.”

“Look Celestia, as much as I don't like you and you don't like me, we need to put that aside if we want to get out of this in one piece. So please, cut me the fuck loose.” With that, the binding around my arms and wrists vanished, but it wasn't Celestia that did it.

“Thanks Luna. Now, when I give the signal, everypony head for the door that I was brought through. Guards lead the way, Demon Hunters on the flanks, everypony else in the middle, and I'll bring up the rear. We clear?” My only answer was a series of grunts.

“All right. One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to-”

“CITIZENS OF EQUESTRIA!” boomed a voice from overhead.

“Oh what the fuck is it now!” I swore looking up into the sky for the source. It didn't take me long to spot the massive hologram of a cloaked pony's head being projected on a cloud bank.

“IT IS TIME, TIME THAT WE THROW OFF THE OPPRESSIVE YOKE OF THE PRINCESSES. FOR TOO LONG HAVE THEY SAT IN CONTROL WITH THE VERY SUN AND MOON ANSWERING TO THEIR WHIM ALONE. WITH THAT CONTROL THEY HAVE KEPT US AS LITTLE MORE THAN HOSTAGES FOR GENERATIONS. WE GIVE THEM OUR RESPECT NOT OUT OF LOVE BUT OUT OF FEAR, FEAR OF WHAT THEY MIGHT DO IF WE DIDN'T DO AS WE WERE TOLD. FEAR THAT THEY MIGHT WITH HOLD THE VERY SUN THAT WE NEED TO GROW OUR CROPS. OR THAT THEY MIGHT MOVE THE SUN CLOSER AND BURN OUR WORLD TO A USELESS HUSK. WELL I SAY NO MORE! I SAY THAT IT IS TIME FOR WE, THE TRUE RULERS OF EQUESTRIA, TO STAND UP AND TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR WORLD!”

“Great, another tyrant playing at being a savior. That shit is getting really old.” If I still had eyes, I'd have rolled them.

“This has happened before?” asked Luna, never taking her eyes off the hologram as it continued to spew its propaganda.

“On my world, more times than I care to admit.”

“That's not very reassuring.” She said glancing back at the surrounding crowd as it slowly inched closer. This was a powder keg waiting to go off and there was no way for the Princesses or Twilight and her friends to get away from this many attackers. Time for a distraction.

With a turn and a gesture I unleashed a wall of Hellfire into the crowd. I may not be able to aim at range but up close, I can shotgun it with the best of them. I kept the flames going only long enough for the bodies to crumble away before I killed them and turned to the stunned ponies behind me.

“You know the plan, now move!” With that the world became a blur of motion and violence as we made our way back into the castle.

-----

“Close 'em, close 'em, close 'em!” I shout just as I cleared the rapidly shrinking gap in the main doors to the throne room. That had been a very close call for the lot of us. Nopony had expected there to be so many Black Cloaks or for them to be so heavily armed.

“Is everybody okay?” I ask as the heavy bar falls into place across the doors behind me.

“We’re all fine here, Darling,” said a very tired Rarity from the huddle of her friends as they used each other as a prop to keep from falling over in exhaustion.

“I just wish I could say the same for my mane,” she finished with a defeated sigh. I’d say that a missing bit of mane was the least of her concerns; nopony had seen that minotaur coming and if I wasn’t as supernaturally fast as I am, she would likely be missing the head that her mane was attached to instead.

“And I wish I wasn’t being treated like a sack of potatoes,” came the grumbling reply from Perfect Count. I’d have laughed at how she was thrown over Hammerstike’s back but I really didn’t want the death glare she had leveled at the side of his head pointed in my direction. Hammerstrike, on the other hand, was doing his best to not look directly at the mare he currently had tied up, and I swear to you he was blushing while he did it.

“You’ve made your point, Rider,” said Celestia as she stormed over to where I stood, breaking me from my survey of the, now, much larger group of ponies. A few of the assembled ponies I recognized as those our group picked up on the way to the throne room, the rest must have already been seeking shelter here.

“What are you on about now?” I asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.

“You’ve won. So you can call off your rabid pack of followers now.” Was she being serious?

“Wow, you really don’t pay attention, do you? I ain’t with them.”

“You must be. You certainly don’t expect me to believe that a shady group of ponies would attempt a coup on the same day that you just happened to be here and that it would stop your execution, do you?” She really is that stupid… or blind. I’ll just go with stupid. “Well? What are your demands?”

“I don’t have any demands, dumbass. If you would pull your head out of your massive ass for two seconds you would have noticed that they were doing their best to kill me too.”

“A clever ruse on your part, I’ll admit-”

“Oh sweet Christ on a crutch.”

-----

“Storm Kicker, we need to talk,” said Hammerstike, as he indicated a somewhat private corner of the packed throne room. Storm had known this was coming ever since she decked Trixie to free the Rider and didn’t put up a fight as she followed her team leader to the indicated corner.

“Care to explain to explain your actions, Kicker, or should I take a wild stab at it? I’m pretty sure I can figure out what’s going on but I’d very much rather hear it from the one betrayed this team’s trust.”

“It’s… kinda hard to explain,” replied Storm Kicker as she fidgeted nervously. She was no stranger to being yelled at by her superiors but deep down she knew that this was far worse than that.

“Well then, you better figure out how to make it easy before I lose what little patience I have left.”

“Okay, I know this will sound crazy but… while I was unconscious after facing the Rider… I had a… dream.”

“A dream. Seriously? You expect me to believe that you risked all our lives and those of the Princesses because of a dream?”

“I say dream,” Storm Kicker stammered, “but it just felt too… real for that. Almost like déjà vu.”

“So what happened in this dream?” asked Hammerstrike, as worry quickly began to replace the anger he had felt previously.

“It was really weird; I really don’t know how to explain it. It was almost like I was seeing the end of the world, but… not.”

“Did that thing cause it?”

“No, he was there, but it didn’t seem like his doing. In fact… he was crying.”

“Crying?”

“Yeah, he was crying over these three fillies that I’ve never seen before.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, even for a prophetic dream.”

“Or maybe,” said a third voice, “You’ve all been wrong about the Rider ever since he got free. Maybe, he’s not as bad as you think.”

“Really?” both Hammerstike and Storm Kicker deadpanned as they stared blankly at Perfect Count, who was still tied up and draped across Hammerstike’s back. They had forgotten all about her being there when their, what they thought would be private, meeting had begun.

“What? I’m just saying. He did rescue me from the slavers that killed my parents, if for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.”

“While I doubt that,” said Hammerstike, before turning back to Storm Kicker, “we will continue this conversation later.”

“Yes, sir,” snapped Storm Kicker before she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

“You really shouldn’t be so hard on her, she only did what she felt was right.”

“Nopony asked you for your opinion, so keep them to yourself,” snapped Hammerstrike at the pony draped across his back.

“Oh, handsome and feisty, talk about a double whammy that any girl could fall for,” flirted Perfect as she smacked Hammerstrike on the cutie mark with her bound whooves.

“Please don’t do that,” said Hammerstrike quickly as he turned to face where the Rider and Celestia were yelling at each other so that he could hide his blush.

“But it’s such a nice flank and it might be fun to get to know the pony it’s attached to.” Hammerstike was never gladder that the pretty mare using him as a free ride couldn’t see his face.

Author's Notes:

This one didn't end where I had origionally wanted it too, but after some of the changes that I made it just seemed like the most logical place to stop. Plus, it would have taken me longer to finish and you folks have waited long enough.

Questions, Comments, Critiques: hit me with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsjjS69IPzg