I awoke the next morning to the sound of marching and trumpets.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in a normal situation, I would have gladly accepted this, seeing as my sisters were both in the school’s marching band. But, this was Equestria, and I had yet to see anything like that. This led me to my only other thought, because the only other place where I know I’d hear marching and trumpets is the military.

I was able to get up and run outside, only to see a massive amount of ponies in armor, all of them followed by Celestia. Said Princess, immediately upon seeing me, gave the order to open fire.

Instead of dodging like a normal person, I yelled “STOP!” and pulled up my sleeve on my right arm. This revealed the Mark of Faust that was given to me by F.A.U.S.T. a couple days prior. I had been hoping to have gone to Canterlot instead, but this would have to do.

There was murmuring in the guard. Apparently, they didn’t know what to think about this.

“I told you to attack!” Celestia commanded.

“And I say stand down!” commanded a Luna who was emerging from the cave. She must have been woken up, too. She presented her Mark of Faust to the guards, who immediately dropped their weapons.

“Attack them!” screamed Celestia. “Attack them, or I will make you attack them!”

The guards stood there motionless. They didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Alright then,” Celestia said. “You give me no choice!” She flew up into the air, horn charged, then cast down a spell onto the troops.

Right before my eyes, I saw several of them change. The ones that didn’t ran for cover, or ran into the cave. The ones that changed, however, became behemoths. Tall, bulky, monsters of the stallions they once were. Throw that in with her spell turning them anthro and completely mindless, and you’d have the monsters that now stood before me.

She didn’t order them to attack, however. No, first she took advantage of her arial spot, and fired a massive beam of energy down at me. I was able to dodge, but just barely.

“Luna!” I screamed out. “We need to get inside! I’m pretty sure we can’t beat her like this.”

“But what about your friends?” she asked. “Surely they could help you!”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I yelled. “Luna! Get inside! I’m gonna follow close, and we’re gonna get to the token stash!”

With that, we ran inside the cave, cowardly guards keeping the entrance closed.

3rd Person:

Dox ran inside, and franticly to a pile of tokens that he had made, and hidden from the ponies. He sorted through all of the different tokens, only to find that most of the ones he was after had mysteriously gone missing. Twilight must have found his stash and started investigating the tokens. Oh well, he’d have to do with what he had. Among the ones he was able to find, he took the token for Asphyxious, and the Team Rocket token.

Just as he was about to summon all of them, a portal opened up and deposited a stunned Alex, holding a golden mask in his hands.

“Yo, Alex,” Dox said. “You couldn’t have showed up at a better time! I need as much help as I can get if I’m going to stop Sun Butt out there.”

“Dox?” Alex asked as he looked around in mild confusion, “I’m guessing that this is your ‘world’?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Dox said. “And there’s about to be a few more people, hold on.”

Dox then used the tokens in his grasp and summoned the others.

The first portal opened and out of it came out a tumbling blue blob, “WOBBA!!!” The blob fell face first onto the floor, “fffeett….”

Not even seconds later a small pink filly jumped out of the portal landing on Wobbuffet’s back. “WEEEE, let’s go again!”

“SCREWBALL!!!” Moments later the rest of the Rocket gang popped out of the portal, Sarah looked at Screwball with a angry yet worried expression, “Screwball! What have I told about following us!”

Screwball looked at the floor, pouting, “To not do it…”

The next portal that opened took a little longer to open as if something else was coming throught. Then THE METAL SNAKE THING POKED IT HEAD OUT!?. It wasn’t alone as it moved out of the way to let a large monster of metal claws and spines on it back walk out next and just as I thought that he wasn’t coming Asphyxious come out looking around before hugging his metal monsters.

“Haha!, it worked oh this is going to be fun. Oh, hi Dox”

“Hey Asphyxious,” Dox said. “Glad you could make it.”

He looked like he was about to say something else, until he saw the large group of ponies staring at him like he was something out of a horror movie.

“Umm, hi” Asphyxious said as the large metal monster standing next to him give a small wave with it large claw.

Alex seemed to be questioning the lich. The large metal monster looked like it was playing with Screwball. Fluttershy was in shock, but still made her way over to the metal snake to pet it. Luna looked to be in approval. Twilight looked scared, yet extremely interested. Pinkie was bubbly as always. Rainbow took a protective stance, and the others seemed to be cowering behind her.

“Alright,” Dox said. “We have a good amount of people. Now let me fill you in. Out there is Celestia. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but this Celestia is corrupted as hell. She’s been corrupted by a fell shadow supercharged into what I call a fell eclipse. I have no idea where that is, but we need to stop Celestia. She’s taken my dice and become nigh invincible, but I know we can still stop her. If we can get the dice off of her, then we will have a better chance. Now, she’s also taken to the air and corrupted about thirty guards. They’re all anthro now, just like she is. Apparently it’s to assume a form compatible to the power. I don’t get it, don’t ask me. All we need to do is stop her, not kill her. Got it?”

Asphyxious held up his hand as if wanting to ask something.

“Yes, Asphyxious?” Dox asked.

“If she can fly, how do we keep her on the ground?”

“Not a freaking clue,” Dox responded. “I could try and keep her grounded, but I’d need a boost to get up to her. Hey, Team Rocket, you guys have a pokemon that could give me a lift?”

Sarah looked around her belt for a pokeball, “Yeah, I think Yanmega strong enough to carry you, and if you turn out to be too heavy for her, theres always Weezing.”

The Iron Lich then looked at everyone before saying. “So what about her guards, do we kill them too?”

“No!” Dox screamed. “We’re not killing anyone! Not unless we have to. If you can, please, try to just take them out of the battle. I don’t want deaths on our hands.”

The Lich just stared at Dox as if thinking about what to say next. “You may have to…”

“I know,” Dox said. “And I’m already at terms with killing. A certain war with Diamond Dogs made sure of that. Listen, we don’t have a lot of time, we have to….. Where’d Alex go?”

True to the changeling’s word, the Displaced known as Alex had disappeared. Dox was able to notice some strange footprints, however.

“He left to go get fighting,” Dox said. “No wonder it’s been quiet over here. Let’s go guys, we can’t just let him have all the fun.”

The second the party made it outside, they were met with a supercharged solar blast from Celestia. Asphyxious the yelled out. “Seether block that attack!” His metal beast ran off ahead on all fours then stood in the way of solar attack, holding its large arms up in a cross.

After the blast and the smoke cleared, they could see it was still standing, but its left arm was hanging from it shoulder. Even some of the armour on its arm was falling off.

“Oh now I’m pissed!” Asphyxious yelled before running out and shooting at her with a smg.

“Alright, while he distracts her, I need a lift,” Dox said.

Sarah took out Yanmega’s pokeball and handed it Dox, “Take care of her, alright.”

“I will,” Dox said. “GO! Yanmega!”

In an explosion of light the large dragonfly appeared, yelling out her name, “Yanmega, I need you to give Dox a lift.” Yanmega nodded, flying behind Dox, she wrapped her legs around him, flapping her wings she started to take off.

Down below, you could see a character made of metal pop up every now and again, slashing at the essentially mutated guards. Every now and then, a guard would go down, but eventually he was pinned by one of them. As the guard stood down on him, crushing his chest, someone yelled out.

“Weezing, use Thunderbolt!” The large two headed ball floated behind the mutated guards, grinning, Weezing shot out a large bolt of lighting at the guards, knocking them unconscious.

The Weezing sneered, “Weeez [Such dishonor, are a group of guards really needed to take down a single opponent? Disgraceful!]”

The metal beast that the Lich called a Seether gave out a roar as if agreeing with the pokemon. It then ran at the guards swinging it working arm wildly at them, it even sent a small one flying in to a tree.

“Lickitung, Rollout!” A large pink chameleon appeared, curling into a ball it launched itself towards a guard, momentarily stunning it, “Now Seviper finish the guard off with a Poison Tail!” Bursting out of the ground, the black snake called Seviper rammed it’s tail onto the guard, rendering it unconscious.

“Hold it right there!” A guard cried out as he rushed forwards, five guards following shortly behind him, only to stop as the ground underneath them became like quicksand, the guards seeping down into the ground.

“On the contrary,” A voice said, before a form flickered at the edge of the quicksand, revealing Alex as Nuparu, his Aqua Blaster Blade shoved into the earth, “I think you should hold it.” However, the guards easily broke out of the swampy ground and lunged at Alex. Alex tried to pull his Blade out as quick as possible, so as to avoid the oncoming hulking guards. However, he was too slow, and the first guard who had broken out slammed into him, pinning him…. again.

Just as it looked like the guard was about to try and take a bite out of his face, a metal centipede shot out of the ground right next to Alex’s head and bit into the face of the mutant guard’s head. As the guard pulls back, the Cankerworm started to wrap itself around its body and started to constrict him.

“Thanks!,” Alex shouted to Asphyxious, then rolled back, stepping behind a nearby tree. “I really picked the wrong Kanohi for this,” He said as he pulled off the Volitak, switching back to human form before slapping on the Kanohi Elda, transforming into Hahli. Immediately, the Elda detected two presences behind the tree, and he let out a curse as he jumped away from the tree seconds before a mutant guard burst out from behind the tree, snapping the tree just to get to him. Right afterwards, a beam of energy annihilated the guard, leaving nothing but ash where it stood.

“SORRY!” Dox yelled from above. “Kinda hard to keep her from aiming down there!”

“DIE YOU!” Celestia yelled, letting out yet another blast.

“HIT STREAM!” Dox yelled as he let out another wave of energy to try and counter, only to have the beam slow down slightly. “Son of a bitch! I need a better way to deal with her! Somebody, please tell me you have a better way to get her down! I really don’t want to do what I’m thinking!”

“I got one, just make sure she stays in one place!” Yelled Asphyxious as he tried to fire some fire spell’s at her.

“On it!” Alex shouted as he dove behind a rock, and pulled off the Elda before slapping on the Kadin, transforming into Toa Jovan within seconds. “Still not used to this form,” He muttered to himself, his voice having a slight metallic ting to it, as he activated the Kadin, launching him away from a guard that slammed into the place he had been moments earlier, before focusing on Celestia, his hands outstretched. “I hope this works,” He said, then focused his magnetic energy outwards. Using his magnetic powers, he focused on the metal bits in Celestia’s armor before amplifying their attraction to the earth’s core to extreme amounts.

Celestia was sent plummeting to the earth. She was able to stop her fall at about ten feet above the ground. This cost her to lose her crown and an earring, however, the latter tearing part of her ear off with it.

Dox and Yanmega followed after her. Though, when they reached the same height as Celestia, Dox told Yanmega to drop him and go back to Sarah. After touching down, Dox ran over to the discarded bits of Celestia’s outfit, removing the dice that were inside of them and inputting them into the Dice Rolling Core in the process.

“Alright,” Dox said. “Thanks Alex!”

“No prob, though you might want to hurry up!” Alex gritted out, his teeth clenched as he kept focusing on Celestia, ”I don’t know how much longer I can hold her!”

Just before Dox could even ask what Asphyxious’s plan was, they saw him teleport behind Celestia and slash her wing clean off with his staff. However he was kicked by her into the woods and landed by crashing into Alex, breaking his hold on Celestia in the process and knocking out the Toa in the process. She then started floating HIGHER into the air, propelled by magic.

“Okay… That, kind of hurt” He said laying in a half destroyed tree.

“Team Rocket!” Dox yelled out. “Please tell me you have a pokemon that knows Gravity or Smack Down!”

Tomas looked through his belt in a panicked expression, “Ummm.. hold on.” Snapping his fingers, he grabbed a pokeball from Sarah’s belt, “Porygon Zero! I choose you!” In an explosion of light came out a Porygon, the Porygon had a black flag with a red R tied onto it’s tail and a zero on it’s forehead, “Zero, use Gravity!” The Porygon’s eyes glowed as suddenly the area around Celestia became much more heavier, forcing Celestia down onto the ground.

“Thanks!” Dox yelled. He then charged Celestia, only to get blasted at. The blast barely missed, Dox just teleporting behind Celestia in time. “NOW STAY DOWN!” he yelled as he brought the sword down upon her, lodging it deep into her right shoulder. He then attempted to rip off the die lodged in her glove, only to get a good hold on it before getting blasted into Tomas, ripping out the die in the process. “Sorry Tomas,” Dox said as he got up, extending a hand to Tomas to help him up.

“Thanks,” Grabbing his hand, he pulled himself up. “Meowth, if this turns out to be too troublesome, try to have a mech ready.”

Meowth saluted and pulled out a yellow gem. “Right!” Meowth then ran out of the battlefield, Wobbuffet running besides him.

“Let’s hope you can get it up soon,” Dox said. “We might need it.”

Right as Dox said that, the guards stopped what they were doing and started heading towards Celestia. When they reached her, Celestia hit what was left of them with a spell, turning the ten guards that were left into MASSIVE behemoths, at least 30 meters tall each.

“You have got to be kidding me, they are bigger then a heavy warjack” The Lich complains as he makes his way out of the woods with Alex over one shoulder.

Sarah looked at the massive guards fearfully, “Screwball go with Meowth, and take Lickitung with you,” Screwball simply nodded running towards Lickitung, she climbed onto it’s back and the two ran towards Meowth’s direction.

“How long is that going to take?” Dox asked. “Because I’m pretty sure we need it now.”

“With the Chaos magic inside the gem, it should take about a few minutes,” Tomas took out a golden pokeball. “We’re going to have to buy some time.” Asphyxious dumped Alex at their feet and called over his warjacks as he called them.

“I’ll get you that minute, but you owe me one” He start making his way to the behemoths with Cankerworm on his left side and Seether on his right.

Tomas smirked and threw out the golden ball, “Gyarados! Use Thrash!” The ball opened up and out of it came out a large blue scaled snake-like fish, his height almost matched the mutated guards, Gyarados lunged at the guards already attacking them.

“Well shit,” Dox said simply. “If you guys can get an opening for me, I can get at Celestia. She has my sword, without it, I’m no help.”

“I got my hands full with just one!” Roars out the Lich as he stabbed his staff into the eye of the behemoth as one of his metal monsters was holding the behemoth arm and his metal snake was biting as it wrapped it body around the behemoth leg.

“I just need an opening,” Dox said. “I’m not asking for much. Wait a sec, I think I know how to help.” Dox then pressed a button on his robotic arm, calling Righty out to help. She took the form of a black dragoness, still wearing the Hyperion logo, and immediately started to blast at the behemoths. “Alright, that should help, but I need that opening!”

“On it!” Alex said, though albeit a tad slurred from having just regained consciousness, then took out Jovan’s Magnetic Bolt Launcher and shot several bolts at the guards, shooting them through their knees so as to keep them from attacking or jumping at the team of Displaced. One of the behemoths fell to its knees.

“That’s it!” Dox yelled. “Someone, throw me!”

Asphyxious laughed at this as he teleported over to Dox just before another behemoth smashed its fist into the one eyed behemoth where the Lich was before. “You sure about this, dude?”

“Absolutely,” Dox said. “I need you to throw me through the gap that Alex made.” Right then, a bolt of energy was shot at the team, just barely missing all of them. “See? Celestia is right over there! If I can get over there and get my sword and the last of my dice back, I can end this!”

“A simple ‘yes’ would of done it” He grabbed Dox and threw him as far as he could.

Dox went sailing over the behemoths, only to collide directly into Celestia. Celestia tried to shoot him point blank, but Dox had other plans. Grabbing his sword and ripping it out of her shoulder, Dox was able to do one more move.

“THIS IS IT!” Dox screamed. “TIME FOR JUDGEMENT!” and with that, Dox brought down his sword into Celestia’s chest, right before EVERYTHING went black.

Dox was floating in the void again, he could see everything the battlefield held, while Celestia floated in chains in front of him. But the strange thing was, he was accompanied by the other Displaced this time.

“Wow,” Dox said. “This is odd.”

The Lich on the other hand was just staring at Dox. “Remember what I said before Dox…”

“Ah, great,” Alex said as he looked around, now back in his human form.

“ARE WE IN THE VOID?!” Sarah yelled panickedly, “LORD ARCEUS WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?! I DON’T WANT TO BE TRAPPED HERE WITH GIRATINA!!!”

Tomas looked around fearfully, “PALKIA IF THIS IS A PRANK, IT’S NOT FUNNY!”

“Don’t worry guys,” Dox said. “This is a strange part of the void. It’s actually known as the inbetween.”

Asphyxious looked around at the others. “Anyone have a fish”

“Seriously guys,” Dox said. “This is what happens when I use that move. That was my form of ‘Judgement’. It’s used to punish those based on alignment…. normally. In this case, it’s so I can help Celestia.” Celestia floated closer to Dox, as if in response to him acknowledging that she was there. “Celestia, you are corrupt, and you have stolen something. First things first, this” -Dox grabbed the d10 on her chest piece- “is mine.” With that, Dox ripped off the die, resulting in a flash of light that restored Celestia back into a non-anthro alicorn. “Now, as for taking care of the corruption. Any of you know how to get rid of it?”

“Trap it in a soul cage?” Asked the Lich as he then hit Dox with a fish in hand.

“Two things,” Dox said, rubbing his head. “One, where the hell do I get a suitable crystal to use as a soul cage? And two, where the hell did you get that fish?!”

Asphyxious looked at the fish in hand then back at Dox. “I don’t know but-” He then held up what looked like some kind of laten that was hanging from a chain around his waist. “-I do have a soul cage”

“All right then,” Dox said before taking the soul cage and turning back to Celestia. “You are to be purged of corruption…. What’s this?” Dox pulled back the soul cage from Celestia, only to find it to be full… and containing a spirit of sorts. “Tirek? Is that you? And to think, you were the cause of all of this. As punishment for your crimes, I’m banishing you to the void.” A small portal opened up next to Dox’s hand. “Have fun in nothingness.”

And with that, it faded to black again.

All along the battlefield were bodies. Most of them living, some of them dead. The behemoths that once stood 30 meters were now back to their normal states as guards ponies.

“Well then,” Dox said. “That was fun. Anyone want to stick around for the aftermath?”

“Well we have nothing to do,” Tomas shrugged, “so sure...Although I’m going to have to check on Meowth, tell him we don’t need his mech anymore.”

Asphyxious was what looked like yelling at a pile of unconscious bodies but then his metal snake thing pokes it head out of them before hissing at the Lich and going back to nesting under all the bodies.

“Sorry Dox what did you say” The Lich called back as he tried to pull worm out.

“I said, aftermath,” Dox said. “Ya know, a party most likely?”

Right then, stone Pinkie popped out of nowhere with a stone Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor following close behind.

“Did you say party?!” Pinkie asked.

“umm, ya sure why not” He then get his warjack to pull Cankerworm out but it just hissed angry at the Lich for being pulled out of its new home.

“Alright, let’s grab everyone else and get to partying!” Dox said.

Author's Notes:

This was a mass collab chapter with Darkstar709's Prepare for Trouble and Make it Double, Runic_Soul's A Displaced Mask Hunter, and ShadowsInTheDark's A Lich of Metal and Souls.
You won't believe how fun (and hectic) it is to have not just 2, but freaking 4 authors working on a chapter together?
I mean, this was the harder one, it being the battle chapter, but the next was easier to write.
Anyways, thanks to those guys for making it a blast to write with them, and for doing this with me.

Anyways, this is Music Mod, not signing off just yet.