“Flash! What’s going on out here?” I cried to the orange pegasus who sat with his battalion near the gates of the Crystal Empire. I could see just beyond the Empire’s protective shell, there lay an immense army of undead humans and ponies, all of them clad in worn, ancient-looking armor and wielding a variety of weapons. What was worse, for every one enemy soldier, there was two changelings to back them up.

On top of all this, it looked like they had the smoke monster from Lost on their side as well, which really didn’t surprise me.

I mean, considering the circumstances.

Flash Sentry looked at me grimly. “This army just showed up out of nowhere; I don’t know how any of our lookouts couldn’t have warned us sooner!” he called as I approached. I looked over the heads of the guards to see the numerous enemies were pounding at the magical wall with their hooves or weapons. Even though their blows had no effect on the shield, they didn’t look like they were going to let up anytime soon.
“Is there anything we can do to push them back?” I asked no one in particular, which was answered by some shrugs and a few uncertain looks.

That’s when he showed up.

A small section of the attacking army stopped their assault and parted, revealing the mastermind behind this whole ordeal.

“Sanguis,” I breathed, glancing down at my pony-fied arm; a token of our last meeting. The warlord drew close to the wall, dragging his massive sword behind him. I saw his armor had been repaired since our last meeting, and he wore a helmet adorned with massive, forward-swept horns.

He stopped inches from the Empire’s protective wall, a cold look on his face.

“I will give you one chance, and one chance only, to surrender. If you do not comply, we will mercilessly slaughter each and every pony that stands in our way,” he said in a booming voice.
I stepped forward from behind the group of guards, revealing myself to the warlord. His expression took on the slightest look of surprise.

I held my sword at my side and looked him defiantly in the eyes.

“We will fight,” I said simply.

He smiled wickedly. “Then you will all die,” he replied darkly.

He walked back into the gap in the crowd, where the massive black cloud that shrouded the army had condensed and formed a pony silhouette, which eventually took on the form of the one and only King Sombra.
The guards started to panic at the sight of the evil king who had previously locked them in an endless state of fear and torment, but I tried my best to boost their morale.
“We don’t have to worry about him,” I said reassuringly, “the shield is too strong for them to break through.”

Just then, Sombra re-entered his smoke form and rushed the shield at blinding speed, large cracks forming at the spot he hit.

“Okay, I might be wrong on that one,” I muttered as I ran to the guard barracks to see who else was planning on showing up.

“What?!” Princess Luna screamed in her now rarely-used Royal Canterlot voice as she confronted Cadence in the throne room, “why wasn’t Allen told about this? Or myself or my sister, for that matter?”

Cadence took a nervous step back. “I’m sorry Luna, but we didn’t want you or Aunty Celestia to panic. After we checked the crystal and found out what was inside… we just thought it would be best that nopony knew. Besides, nothing bad has happened! It just sits in the archives all day, gathering dust,” she explained calmingly.

Luna wasn’t convinced. “You don’t understand, Cadence. Oh, this makes everything worse… if Sanguis gets his hands on that crystal, we’re going to have something a lot worse than an army of Sentinels,” she said angrily, but groaned defeatedly and turned to the doorway. “I have to go; Allen may need my help in the battle.”

The princess of love was surprised. “Luna, you don’t mean you intend to fight, do you?” she asked in a quiet voice.

The princess of the night smiled dangerously and nodded. “That human was going to propose to me tonight. I would gladly fight by his side any day,” she said triumphantly as she ran for the barracks, Cadence following close behind.

“Shining! We need every soldier in the Empire at the gates now!” I shouted as I leapt from the stairs into the guard barracks, breathing heavily. I looked around to find the room… empty. The weapon plaques on the walls were empty, and the armor mannequins were bare.

Just then, a voice from the far end of the room caught my attention. “Allen!” I looked up and saw my father poking his head from behind a massive, steel door. “They’re bringing out the big guns back here; you’re going to want to see this!” he cried giddily.

I followed my father through the door into a massive, open room filled with all sorts of weapons and soldiers preparing said weapons. I saw Shining Armor slipping into a padded jumpsuit on top of a platform in the center of the room.
“Allen!” He called happily as I approached, “I was hoping you’d show up down here; Flash, bring the ‘special weapon’!”
I turned around to see an armor-bound Flash running towards me, carrying a small, leather-wrapped object. I took it carefully and removed the covering to reveal an elegant crystal; it looked almost exactly like the one Celestia and Luna had given me shortly after my fight with the Crystal Sentinels a year earlier.

“We’ve been cooking this up for a few days,” Shining explained, “Your original crystal was a Sentinel’s heart, so it was able to naturally recharge after a little while. We were able to get a crystal able to hold magic on the same level as the hearts, but it only works for a limited time,” he explained.

I nodded as I inspected the crystal; you couldn’t find a better-looking gem on the Shopping Channel no matter how rich you were.
“How much of a charge are we talking here?” I asked with an inquiringly raised eyebrow.
Shining smiled. “We held it against the Crystal Heart for a couple seconds; if the stories about your epic battle last year are true, you should be working with the kind of firepower you used against the Obsidian King,” he explained, and nodded to a labcoat-wearing pony nearby.

The engineer rushed to a control panel and smashed his hoof onto a large red button. There was a loud hiss, and a large portion of the platform we stood on shifted and slid away, a huge blast of steam billowing from the void. I heard a loud clanking noise, and I watched as the mech I had fought just a few days ago rose from the floor.
“Looks like you’ll get to see what this thing can really do!” Shining cried as he ran to the mech and climbed inside.

I would have been jealous, seeing as he got to drive the giant killer robot, but I knew quite well what I was capable with one of these crystals. I held it forward and pictured the crystal armor I had worn during my epic battle the previous year, and watched as the crystal glowed a bright white, and my body became covered in an elegant suit of crystal mail. Then, several large gemstones appeared on my arms and shifted until they became thinner and more plate-like. I looked up at the cockpit of the mech and watched as Shining Armor disabled the safety mode.

Several plates folded away from the mech to reveal four three-inch-wide barrels beneath each one. The blade on the right arm glowed blue straight down the center, and the left hand retreated into the arm, being replaced by a massive energy cannon moments later.

“Let’s kick some flank,” Shining called from the loudspeaker. I nodded and followed him to the massive exit doors on the far side of the room as my helmet formed around my head, and a crystal visor covered my face.

My father sprinted to catch up to us as we exited the building. He wore a suit of armor similar to m royal guard’s armor, and had the same rapier strapped to his belt that he had used in our fight earlier that day.

“I’m going with you!” he called when he was a few feet away, smiling and huffing.

I shook my head. “No, Dad,” I said dismissively, “I’m not letting you get hurt.”

My father crossed his arms. “I wasn’t asking, son,” he said flatly. “I’ve already watched you go up against Sanguis once, and you almost died. I will not stand around and do nothing as that happens again.”
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him for a moment, then softened my gaze and smiled behind my helmet. “Okay, Dad. We’ll fight together,” I said, and continued to follow Shining’s mech to the gates.

“Fighting legions of undead humans and ponies side by side. Hell of a father-son activity, huh?” he asked with a laugh.

I nodded. “It’s the kind of thing you’ll have to get used to around me,” I said apologetically as we approached the gates. I could now clearly see that the damage Sombra was inflicting on the shield was starting to get serious.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I heard my father say as we joined the crowd of guards. I looked around and saw our army was outnumbered a good ten to one when it came to soldiers, but we also had myself, Shining Armor’s mech, and miscellaneous placed catapults and ballistae on some of the nearby rooftops.

I quickly found out we also had the assistance of two alicorns.

“Luna? Cadence?” I asked, confused as I approached the princesses, “what are you doing here?” They were each wearing a majestic-looking suit of armor; Luna’s was a bright silver, and Cadence’s was a radiant purple.
Luna giggled. “Helping you fight, of course,” she said, levitating a halberd from off her back. I saw the blade was appropriately moon-shaped. Cadence had a similar weapon, except hers was adorned with hearts.

“And don’t you dare tell us we aren’t fighting!” Cadence shouted to her mech-piloting husband.
Shining’s laughter reverberated from the speakers. “Come on, Cadence; if Allen is willing to let his father fight, it’s only fair I let you join in too,” he said humorously. “Just promise you’ll be careful?” he added worriedly.
She nodded, smiling broadly. “You know I will,” she said reassuringly.

Luna turned to me, her eyes narrowed teasingly. “I assume you’ll ask me to return to the castle so I’m safe?” she asked in an equally teasing tone.
I smiled and shook my head. “Not a chance,” I said quietly, and held out my hoof-hand as my armor enveloped it, effectively turning my whole arm into a blade as I unsheathed my sword.

“Soldiers of the Crystal Empire!” I called out as Sombra continued his relentless attack on the only thing standing between Sanguis and us, “This is our finest hour! This is when everyone here, Pegasus, Unicorn, and Alicorn; Mare and Stallion; Pony and Human, will show what they are truly made of! We will not disappear into myth as the doomed soldiers that died as they faced impossible odds; this is where we fade into legend as the proud warriors who faced their greatest threat, and WON!” I screamed, resulting in a resounding cheer from the crowd.

I held my blade arm straight forward and shouted with all my breath, my voice amplified by the magic in my helmet and my anticipation for battle, “LET’S KICK SOME ASS!”

At that moment, the shield shattered like glass, the shards fading before they came close to touching the ground, and the battle for the Crystal Empire began.