Chapter 24

Celestia’s eyes narrowed.

Nightmare Moon was becoming an annoyance.

Celestia’s wings beat, sending her forward towards her castle.

Oh, the things she was going to do to that fool of a draconequus.

The purple smoke bleeding from her eyes was making it hard to see, the peripherals of her vision completely obscured, creating a pseudo-tunnel vision that brought Discord and only Discord into her sight.

He sat on top of her tower, sitting on her throne, attacking her ponies, and turning her sister against her.

The things she was going to do to him.

Her mane had erupted into fire, and she flew, a streaking star in the sky. There was no way he didn’t see her.

There was no way he didn’t know.

No way he wasn’t smiling.

She was going to wipe that smile from his face.

She flew forward, diving down at the tower with all of her fury.

Only to be slammed in the side by a lunar glaive. “Do not disregard me, Celestia!” Nightmare Moon screamed. “You have ignored me for too long! I will not have this any longer!”

Celestia’s flight path was thrown, and she went screaming to earth.

The things she was going to do to her…

Him…

Big Mac stared down his opponent.

Something was wrong with the boy.

Well, something beyond the blackout rage and need to kill anything and everything in sight.

Every now and then Red would shake his head, his eyes would clear for the briefest moment, and then he’d return to his maniacal charging.

Something was distracting the boy from his rampage.

All Big Mac needed to do was bring that back to his attention.

Red roared, bringing a hoof around to punch Big Mac.

Big Mac took it, deflecting the blow to the side with a simple swipe of his hoof. The punch went wide and slammed into the ground, throwing up dirt and rocks.

The question was, how was he going to the boy to start thinking about it.

Red ripped a rock out of the ground, lifting it above his head before bringing it down on Mac.

Mac grabbed it from the air, twisting the boulder in his hooves as the trees had taught him, before completely altering the stone's momentum and launching it back at Red without losing speed or force until it slammed into the hulking pony’s face.

Red roared as the stone splintered in his face, sending shards flying through the air.

Mac smirked. “Didn’t yer mama teach ya not to throw things, boy?”

Red roared, before charging, bringing his massive hooves down on the immovable pony.

Big Mac raised his own hooves to meet them.

They met with the crack of thunder.

But Mac did not move.

Red pushed down with the pressure of a thousand volcanoes, erupting with rage and power. Mac grunted, but stayed strong, before looking up into the eyes of the beast. “What’s on yer mind, boy? What’s going on in yer head?”

The rage on his face did not waver for a long second as both ponies strained against the other. And then his face went clear, and his eyes became lucid.

The boy, for he was surely just a boy in the body of a stallion looked down with horror on his face. “S-stay away!” the boy called out. “Please stay away!”

And then the rage returned, and the monster bellowed before bringing one of his hooves up from underneath, catching Mac in a vicious uppercut, and sending him into the air.

His connection with the earth was broken.

Big Mac went flying, soaring through the air before slamming into the ground once more.

Before Mac could roll back onto his hooves, Red was upon him, kicking him up into the air.

Mac felt his bones rattle as the second blow slammed into him, his strength having been sapped from him as his connection with the earth was severed. He landed hard again, his spine shaking as he hit the ground.

“Ow…” He muttered.

In a moment, Red was above him, ready to bring a heavy hoof down on his head.

Big Mac’s eyes went wide, and he rolled, just barely missing getting squashed by the massive pony.

Red’s hooves shook the ground beneath him, while Mac’s roll got his hooves back under him. The connection with the earth was regained, and he stood back up to catch another downward blow.

Both of Red’s hooves slammed down onto Mac’s legs, and the force simply traveled through him to the ground.

“Come on, boy! Focus!” Mac yelled. “I know you can do better than this!”

“I…” he said as his eyes cleared once more. “I don’t want to kill anymore!”

“You don’t have ta,” Mac said, even as the boy’s eyes began turn red.

“No! Stay with me, boy!” Mac said sacrificing a leg so that he could grab the colt’s face.

The lucidity fought back.

“You stay with me, and you’ll be fine.”

The boy shook his head. “I’m not fine…”

Before he was Big Red, he was Morning Dew.

Morning Dew was a young colt, learning business. His father had been in business, his grandfather in business, and after getting his Cutie Mark, it looked like he was going into business too.

Morning Dew was good at business. He did his job with exemplary speed and attitude, performing perfectly, with just one issue.

Every morning, as he got into work, there was a stallion.

He never even really knew the pony’s name.

Everyday that stallion would come in, drink all the coffee, and then would not fill the pot.

It was such a small thing. Small but infuriating.

And everyday Morning Dew lived with it.

It wasn’t a real issue.

But still, everyday he’d come in, watch the stallion drain the pot, and then leave, without so much as a question.

And Morning Dew wanted to strangle him for it.

Then he’d shake his head, remember that it was wrong and not acceptable in society for him to do that.

This continued, for years.

Everyday, the stallion would drink his coffee, leave the pot empty, and Morning would fantasize about killing him for his horrid behavior.

But it was just a fantasy.

That’s all it was.

All it was ever meant to be.

And then one night, he dreamed.

Dreamed that he was chained to a wall, and a massive dragon creature looked down at him. “As for you three, your job is about to begin.”

He woke up the next morning, and something had changed.

That morning, when Morning Dew saw the stallion drink the coffee before leaving the pot unfilled, he fantasized, as usual.

And then something snapped.

He stood, walked out of the break room, and then grabbed the stallion by the throat.

His anger began to rise.

His world went red.

The stallion looked up at him, eyes wide with confusion and fear as his lungs begged for air.

Morning got angrier. “Next time,” he said. “Fill the Celestia-damned coffee pot!”

“Mornin-Woah! Morning! What are you doing!?”

Someone tried to pull him away.

But Morning wasn’t done strangling the coffee drinker.

“Morning! Morning! Stop!”

They tried to pull him away, but they couldn’t. They weren’t strong enough.

He was stronger than any of them.

The stallion was already dead, his windpipe crushed.

“Stop it, Morning! Stop it!”

But Morning didn’t stop.

He was not fine.

Knives flew through the air, smashing against Shining’s shields, but the Captain of the Guard would not let some punk 2nd edition-er get through his magical defense.

The knives hit and bounced against Shining’s shields, while the Captain tried to move around to find the attacker, trying to figure out how to work with his opponent.

There was obviously something wrong with him, and if the brief moment of clarity that was brought on by his little moment of nerd rage was any indication, then the poor guys was in a bad way.

“Stand still, you miserable beast!” Mr. Domino said through grit teeth. “It is by Fate’s decree that you shall fall to me today!”

Shining rolled his eyes.

If he had to guess, nerd rage could probably break the mental control again, for a little while. Much like his duty had fractured Chrysalis’ hold on him.

It was his guess anyway.

Well, at least he had a bunch of material to criticise 2nd edition.

“I can’t believe you liked second edition!” Shining said, bringing up a dome to catch the incoming weapons before inverting it, catching the knives in the dome. “It was a complete mess of rules, and the whole THAC0 was just plain dumb.”

Mr. Domino said nothing, but he did growl.

Another wave of knives came in.

“Not to mention to the stat progression, cause that made sense, right?”

Another growl.

“Then rolling low for ability checks but high for saving throws, cause you want to confuse your players every other roll.”

Domino barred his teeth.

“And then, when the rules weren’t overly complicated, they were overly simplified, up to the point that it was almost insulting.”

“It was a role-playing game!” Domino yelled. “You weren’t supposed to be some dumb hack-and-slash idiot! You were supposed to play the role!”

Shining smirked as he watched a few knives falling from the sky.

“It didn’t matter if the combat rules were clunky as full plate! The point was playing the role!”

Shining slid in, bringing a shield up into an uppercut against the criminal, sending the stallion flying through the air.

Domino’s world spun crazily, and Shining stood above him, quickly grabbing the knives that lay around the plaza before encasing them in small domes.

Target disarmed.

“Now, are you ready to come quietly?” Shining asked.

Before he was Mr. Domino, he was someone else.

Now, he’d be too ashamed to tell you who he was.

That’s why he cut out his cutie mark.

Before he was Mr. Domino, he was a simple pony, a pony who ran a game shop down in Baltimare.

He was a good gamer. He liked his second edition, feeling that third simply made things too hack-and-slash, as well as a bit overly simplified.

But he did have a nasty gaming habit.

You see, every now and then he’d have a run of bad luck.

There were nights, as he sat with his friends around the old O&O table, where he simply couldn’t roll anything under a ten, and when he did, it was almost always in the case of saving throws, which, he needed a high number for.

Now every player is bound to have some bad luck. It’s common as well as expected.

But this stallion couldn’t live with that.

So he lied.

Every now and then, upon rolling a natural one, he’d nudge the dice for a nineteen. Or, if he needed to roll low, he made sure that a two was never too far away.

He lied, and cheated, frequently.

And then he had a dream.

“As for you three, your job is about to begin.”

The next morning, he woke up in a strange place, with only a die, a knife, and a pony that hung chained across the room. He was told that only one of them would get to leave.

He rolled for it.

And then he lied about his roll.

“Let’s go, girls! Let’s go!” Twilight cried, bursting into the Vault of the Elements. The six mare spread out, securing their Elements as quickly as possible.

“Necklace! Necklace! Necklace! Necklace! Necklace! Big Crown thingy! Let’s go!” Twilight said, as she and her friends grabbed the Elements and ran, putting them on while on the move.

“Alright!” Twilight said, “Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy! Head up to the towers and work your way down. Applejack, Rarity! Find some more towers and work your way up! Pinkie! Use that memory of yours and check the Great Hall look for anything out of the ordinary! I’ll head out and check the gardens! Any questions?”

“Clear as crystal, Sugarcube!” Applejack said as they ran down the hallways.

“Once you’re done head back to the center of the castle. We’ll meet up with the stallions there. Understand?”

“Read you loud and clear, Twilight!” Rainbow said,

“Good! And break!”

The mares split with almost practiced precision, each heading to their own destination with the utmost speed.

Twilight burst into the gardens, throwing the doors open and sending animals running.

Hooves slamming into the ground, she ran straight for the middle of the garden grounds. “Okay, Twilight, if I were to hide a sword here, where would I put it?” she asked herself aloud as she ran.

She kept running, searching for an answer to her question, before she suddenly came to a halt, her hooves digging into the ground as she skidded to a stop.

A stallion sat before her.

He was silent, and had his back turned to her, but she knew that figure.

She also knew something was very, very wrong.

“A-Alan?” she called.

The armor he had been wearing was gone, replaced only with a darker coat, and a flowing mane as black as the void.

He slowly turned his face towards her, revealing his red-and-green eyes the ran with purple smoke.

He smiled, revealing a fanged mouth. “Ah, Mrs. Sparkle. We finally meet.”

Twilight took a step back. “Y-you’re not Alan.”

“How incredibly astute of you, Mrs. Sparkle,” the stallion said with a roll of his eyes. He stood, turning then to reveal Orion, hovering in a magical aura close to the stallion’s chest. “I am not your husband, however he has certainly made himself useful.” He smirked. “Now, allow me to introduce myself. I am Sombra, Emperor of the Crystal Empire, Conqueror of Canterlot, and King of Tartarus itself.”

Twilight blinked. “Wh-what did you do?”

“I made a deal with your husband, I saved your child, and he gave me a wonderful new body,” he said with a smile.

Twilight looked down at Orion, who did not seem to be responsive.

“Oh, don’t worry about your boy,” Sombra said. “You see, sadly, your husband’s body will fail me in time. However, if he is any indication, then your son will be an excellent successor.”

Twilight took a step forward.

Instantly, an ugly red hard mana blade hovered over the babe. “Excellent, but ultimately expendable.”

Twilight froze.

“Glad to see we have come to an understanding.”

“Wh-what are you...what do you want from me?” Twilight asked.

“Only to watch utter despair fall upon your face,” he said, simply. “Nothing else.”

“What?”

Sombra smiled.

“The denizens of Tartarus live for pain. And as king, I want to cause you pain. And there is no pain greater than knowing that your son will live in a world where the name of Faust means nothing. Where cutie marks are non-existent, where ponies, zebras, minotaurs and the like will live, die, and go directly to my realm.”

Twilight blinked.

“It’s a grand plan,” Sombra said, with a smile, “Millennia in the making, actually. And I can see that it’s going straight over your tiny, mortal mind, so I will explain slowly. I win. From here on out, every mortal born on this miserable planet, is doomed to Tartarus. Faust will be forced to send her own children to me, and I will be ruthless. You, your son, everypony and everyone you have ever loved will die and burn in my domain. And Faust will have to watch.”

Twilight looked back down at Orion.

“I win, and you are on the losing side, simple as that.”

“So what are you going to do?” Twilight asked.

“First, I’ll break the guards,” Sombra said. “That way, when the ponies that depend on them watch as they do nothing at their pain, their hope will die. Then the fathers, so that when the wives cry for their husbands, no one will answer. Finally the children, because when neither mother nor father come to their rescue, they will lose all faith.

“As for you, however,” Sombra said, as a blade formed next to him. “You will be one of the first to join my realm, or, perhaps, one of the last to enter Paradise.”

The blade leveled at her neck, and shot forward. “Goodbye, and good riddance,” Sombra said.

Twilight leapt to the side, trying to dodge the blade, only for the blade’s path to correct as it flew straight to her throat.

And then a streak of blue shot down from above, and shattered the sword in an explosion of red and blue magic.

A pink figure landed suddenly, between Sombra and Twilight, her wings spread wide and her crown stood proud on her head.

In front of her, hung a recurve bow, and a fiery blue arrow sat nocked on the string.

“Sombra, Bane of Shade,” Princess Cadence said as her eyes fell upon the figure before her. “Mio vecchio nemico…We finally meet.”

“C-Cadence?” Twilight said, surprised.

“You, young lady,” Cadence said as she stood on her hind legs as she grabbed her bow, “have a lot of explaining to do. Right now, though, I have some business with you,” she said, turning now to Sombra.

The stallion frowned.

“Hold the line, stallions!” Police officer Silver Crest cried as the demons swarmed in front of them. “Hold the line!”

The wave of darkness writhed before the guards, threatening to swallow them whole, kept only at bay by the magic that rested in their hooves.

Even so, they would not last long. Injured ponies lay off to the side, nursing wounds that bubbled with black pus.

“Hold the line!” Crest roared again, before turning to a nearby stallion “Start evacuating the civilians, and get any member of the guard that is up and ready to go on this line! We need all the support we can get!”

The stallion nodded, and ran, galloping down the street as the demons hissed and roared.

“Stand, stallions! Stand!” Crest roared, even as he slammed his hooves down on a demon. “Stand now! Stand for those you swore to protect! Stand!”

The ponies pushed, forcing the darkness back.

“Push! Push!”

They forced them back, kicking with legs and biting with teeth.

“Push them back into Tartarus!” Crest yelled. “Send them back!”

Another push and the wave broke, sending demons flying this way and that as they tried to rally and regroup.

A cheer went up from the ponies, even as off-duty guards ran up to reinforce the line.

“Stay strong! They’re coming back!” Another officer yelled.

“They will not break us!” Crest yelled. “We will stand strong! We will stand firm! A thousand years will not move us, a thousand demons will not shake us! We...” he paused. “We...we will…”

Total silence fell over the line of ponies.

A massive foot crushed the ground before them twenty feet away.

It’s folded wings stretched from one side of the street to the other. It bore no weapon, nor did it need one, for its claws seemed to rip the air before them, and his horns gleamed in the darkness.

The Fiend of the Pit walked forward, the ground groaning and weeping under his steps.

Crest felt his throat go dry.

The Pit Fiend smiled. “First the guards, then the men, then the women, then the children!”

The imps whooped and cheered behind the ember-eyed monster.

Then there came the sound of distant thunder.

The sound of cracking stone, however, brought all eyes up, and they watched as a cannonball bounced after the side of tower and the masonry come loose, falling down straight onto the fiend.

The Pit fiend looked up, and only managed to stare wide-eyed at the falling stone, before being crushed beneath it.

Crest looked behind him, and was shocked to see a small aircraft flying through the air, an air yacht shaped not-unlike a lionfish.

He smiled. “We have air support! Keep going, stallions! The night is not over yet! The dawn comes still!”

Applebloom pulled out the spent fuse from the hoof cannon. “Hit confirmed! I need a new ball!”

Rumble rolled a new cannonball down while Silver spoon carried the charge.

Pipsqueak stood at the helm, smiling as he saw the massive creature go down. “Good shot! Now hold until we get closer, we need more accurate shots, and that was far to far for my liking!”

“Aye, aye!” Applebloom called, before she began to reload.

Pipsqueak began to turn, his eyes scanning the deck. “Tiara! To the cannon off port bow!”

“Where?” the filly asked.

Pip rolled his eyes. “For the last time! Starboard is right, Port is left, Bow is the front, and the Stern is the rear! Now get your stern to the bow, before I throw you off the port!”

Tiara scurried over to the cannon,and grabbed it, searching for a target.

“Captain!” Scootaloo cried from the side of the envelope before swinging down to the deck. “We have a massive storm to the north, and it looks like the imps are coming towards us!”

Pip gripped the helm, looking out towards the horizon where a cloud of imps began to move toward them. Then his gaze turned north.

The cloud rumbled as lightning lit its core.

He smiled.

“I am a leaf on the wind,” he said, not knowing why. “Watch how I soar.”

The tower, the one that had just been shot, was not something to forget.

You see, that was not just any tower.

That specific tower, had been Chaos’ room.

The same room where Judgement had been hidden.

And now the sword was perched precariously on the last remaining support, barely balancing in the wind.

It waited a moment, sitting there in the sky, before it began to topple.

Backwards, off the remains of the tower, before slamming, pommel first into a wall. Then, instead of falling forward and into the street where the Pit Fiend now lay dead, it fell backwards toward a small guard house inside the castle.

It slid down the guard house roof, and spun as it leapt down to the small courtyard inside.

There it dug into the ground, blade first, with a perfect view of a swarm of Mare-Do-Wells all fighting a single, laughing pegasus.

"Discalimer: DungeonMiner does not hate 2nd edition. The arguments found in this story are just stuff he found on a forum somewhere."

Alright, guys, we're getting closer and closer to the end of this, so a short note for today.

"Aw..."

Oh, hush. Next time, the war of the mind, and the redemption of the lost.

"We'll see you all next time!"

Bye!