Judge, Jury, and Executioner.- Tempest Knight

The firefight raged on as I pulled my wounded friend out of the tanks wreckage, dodging a bullet by moving my head as the bullets flew by I turned and burst fired my cannons. Above me I could see Lightning strafing to and fro while trying to see what was happening down by me as I finished pulling Applebits to the safety of the front of the tank, unfortunately that meant seeing my apprentice who had been killed in her effort to rescue me as well. Grimacing at the sight of her broken body I let loose a litany of fury from my lips as I slammed my fore hooves to the ground. Instantly my two ghost warriors materialized and charged off towards the enemy, while they were immortal they would be rather ineffective since my powers were still returning to me, but with my rage so great upon seeing somepony I considered to be like a daughter to me they should have plenty of time to make the enemy crap themselves.

"General!" A gruff voice shouted as a Lunar Ranger galloped up to the ancient armored dragon pony only to stop short about twelve hoofs away when he saw Applebits badly injured and Shining Defense still attached to the tank dead.

"Soldier, take Applebits away from the battle zone, the Shadowbolt and I will hold the line here and fall back to you shortly!" I said as I closed the eyes of my dead friend.

"Yes sir!" Bulls Eye said as he let loose twin AT rounds on the approaching ground forces before wrapping one of Applebits forelegs around his neck as he began marching her out of harms ways.

Lightning landed next to me, his twenty millimeter auto cannon still offloading into the enemy as he watched Bulls Eye and Applebits leave the area, "What is the plan?" he asked looking hopefully at me.

I drew one of my blades in my maw and faced the literal army that was approaching, I suppose my motion spoke for itself as Lightning faced the enemy as he readied his massive .50 cal. Strangely though the enemy stopped about one hundred hoofs away, allowing a lone Griffon to walk in front of them towards us.

"Okay, we can do this the hard way were I kill the two of you, or we can do this the easy way where you cut your losses and surrender." The griffon said as she readied her anti material rifle.

"What is your name griffon?" I bellowed as flames trickled out of my snout and my crystal pony eyes bore into the mercenary.

"I don't see why it matters, but the name is Stern." the now named griffon replied.

"Just wanted to know so I could mention you in my memoirs as being the first heretic to try diplomacy with me, now if you'll excuse us we shall take our leave." I said sternly as I motioned for Dark Lightning to go.

"Whoa, hey I didn't say you could leave punks!" Stern said as she fired a round from her rifle right past my head.

I didn't even flinch when the round grazed my faded charcoal colored fur revealing the midnight black scales beneath them. I only nodded to Lightning who shot off into the sky and vanished as I turned slightly towards my foe.

"Where did your friend go?" Stern said with a slight chuckle.

"I do not require any help to deal with the likes of thee, at least not the help of the living." I said allowing a smile to cross my face as my eyes glowed a deep red and not two, but three Steel Ranger paladins from the war in tattered armor clawed their way out of the ground. "My name is General Tempest Knight, commander of the Equestrian First Army and the apprentice of Hades, otherwise known as the god of the dead." I said now grinning uncontrollably as the undead rangers battle saddles activated but did not fire.

Stern backed up slightly, as did all of her pitiful excuse for an army while I walked away into a cloud of dust that had kicked up from out of nowhere. When the dust cleared so did the I and my undead warriors, leaving Red Eyes forces alone in their territory.

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I appeared out of the shadows nearest to my comrades that had sacrificed so much to save me. Lightning landed near Bulls Eye who had managed to remove Applebits helmet and was watching her nervously.

"How bad?" Lightning asked coming up to my right side as we both walked towards them.

"The armor has stopped the bleeding but she no longer has hind legs, her missile pods are busted, aside from that the armor took most of the blows." I said as we approached the sleeping mare.

"What now that we have gone and nearly gotten ourselves killed?" Bulls Eye asked, looking up towards me since I was now standing directly over him, casting a shadow upon him.

"I don't know." was all I said before a lone tear rolled off my cheek and hit the ground.

"We can't just sit here and wait for somepony or something to come by and kill us." Lightning stated as he sat by the group and checked over his companion.

Bulls Eye put her down gently as he stood up, "We should move, there is no reason to stay here." he said, "I'll carry her." he added with a stern look behind his visor.

"Very well, Lightning I want you to bring up the rear, I'll take point." I said before starting to walk further towards Manehatten and away from Fillydelphia.

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Two hours past and we hadn't encountered a single soul and Applebits was still asleep. Nonetheless I peered around every corner of the ruined town we were in before allowing the team to move up, perhaps it was a sense of responsibility over the death of Defense and the maiming of Applebits, but no matter what I wasn't going to allow any more harm come to what was left of my former life. We were almost to the edge of town when I heard a scream followed by the breaking of bone on concrete, not a good sign when one is trying to stay low. I signaled for us to stop before slipping down the ally way nearest to my left to investigate.

Keeping low and staying behind whatever was large enough to hide me I found the pony who had made the noise, fortunately the ponies who I would assume attacked her were hiding behind cover on the opposite side of the street, and the Steel Rangers were now moving in to deal with them.

"Circle around right, and cut off their escape, these ponies need to learn a lesson." a gruff female voice said.

It was then I noticed that one of the rangers were approaching the young and wounded unicorn mare who was too bloody for me to see the features of, aside from her gold eyes. The ranger targeted her with one of his guns before it started sinning up, wait what? I dashed out of my cover and slammed into the ranger before drawing my left blade and cutting off his weapons startling everypony.

"Care to explain what is happening here soldier?" I casually said as I sheathed my blade and looked at the pony I assumed was in charge, behind and above her I could see that Lightning decided to check in on me and was now targeting the rangers around me with his rifles.

"We have our orders and no wasteland punk is going to keep us from them." she said looking over to a pair of rangers who aimed their weapons at me.

Stubborn as ever I stood my ground and merely raised a brow at the comment 'wasteland punk'before laughing, which made a the rest of the rangers turn my way. Taking my diversion the two ponies behind cover slipped towards my allies on the other side of the street, though the bloodied mare remained next to me since the rangers had their eyes locked on me while I laughed like a madpony.

"What's so funny?" the ranger commander asked, looking me up and down.

"Oh, its just that you insulted the highest ranking General of Equestria." I replied as my laughter died down, "Though nowadays that doesn't account for much even though you have donned our uniform, does it?" I added in a near growl as a few flames escaped my nostrils.

"General?" she said giving her own laugh, "You are a deranged stable pony, you aint no general." she kept laughing as the others joined in.

"Oh I assure you that I am, a close friend to Luna when she was still alive as well." I said making them laugh more and allowing the wounded mare to escape right past them.

"Yeah, then where is your army?" the lead mare asked as she approached me.

"Have you looked behind you Captain Moron?" I said to which all the laughing stopped and a few of the rangers noticed that the ponies they were about to kill had vanished while other rangers spun around just to meet their fate with Dark Lightning as cleanly removed their heads with silenced rounds.

"What is this?" the lead ranger cried as she spun around only to see the Shadowbolt end her life with a single shot.

"This is how the military operates dearest traitor." I said stepping over her corps and walking towards where the wounded mare dragged herself over to.

"Please don't hurt me." she said softly, though to me it sounded as though she was having a hard time breathing.

"Why would I do that ms?" I asked as I reached out and lifted her up, using my wings to stand on my hind legs and walk.

"I.. I don't know, b... but then again why would you help me either?" she managed to ask, her head falling slightly when she spoke.

"I just did what those rangers should have done." I replied as we came back out into the open and Lightning landed on her other side.

"Sir, I get that helping ponies is a priority, but we don't even know if these are the right ponies to help." he raised his point as he helped me carry her over to where Bulls Eye had placed Applebits down and was standing guard.

"Innocent until proven guilty, just because everypony else has forgotten the lessons of the past doesn't mean that I shall abandon them my friend." I replied, reminding him that I am a lot older than I look.

"Point taken." Lightning relied, though I was surprised that the mare we were carrying hadn't said anything.

"Ms, are you still with us?" I asked when I noticed her hooves dragging.

Unfortunately I got no response so we set her down next to Applebits so that Bulls Eye and I could give her a better look. She had multiple lacerations which would explain the blood, though they were not very deep what it didn't explain was why she was having a hard time breathing. This is when I was really hopeful that Applebits would be awake and able to help, though I guess I would just have to wing it with what I knew. Looking at her neck I saw the problem, three bullet wound entries in which the bullets had embedded themselves into her airways. But before I could take the bullets out and administer the healing potion her group of friends found us, they had apparently taken a wrong turn and ended up having to go back to where I had found them.

"Is my sister alright?" a light grey mare with a blue mane and tail asked she had similar lacerations on her, though they had evidently been healed.

"She has multiple wounds, the worst of which are three bullets in her neck." I said after only glancing at the older mare.

"T..Then let us say goodbye at least." she said giving up too soon.

"That won't be necessary my friend." I said as the gemstone on my chest lit up red alongside my eyes and I very quickly ripped the bullets out as Bulls Eye injected the healing potion into her flank.

The mare backpedaled into a filly that looked to be about the same age as the wounded filly. the filly caught her and they both watched as I pulled out bandages to wrap what wounds didn't heal properly.

"Sir, that was our last healing potion, what if Applebits needs one later?" Lightning asked, raising a good question.

"She won't." I clearly stated though I wasn't completely sure of it myself.

The young mares breathing steadied and her sisters calmed down rather quickly after seeing her healed and bandaged. Looking at me the older mare smiled before looking at her younger companion.

"How did you do that, you aren't a unicorn?" the young filly asked from behind her big sister.

"In due time I shall tell you of me, but first I'd like to know your names young ones." I said not wanting to scare them away with my tale as I have done for so many others.

"My name is Shadow Star, this is my sister Moonlight, and you have already met her twin Solar Flare." the older of the three mares said pointing to her sisters as she spoke.

Moonlight was a unicorn with a stark white coat and a speckled black flank and black main with a tail to match, her eyes were a beautiful teal and she had a scar on her left cheek. Her older sister was a pegasus who also had a electric blue mane and tail with eyes to match, her cutiemark was a eight pointed black star with miniatures of itself surrounding it.

"I am Tempest Knight, and I am half dragon, that is how I can use magic." I replied and to my surprise they didn't run, they only sat down and began holding a conversation with us as if we had been friends forever.

Author's Notes:

And cliff hangar (evil laugh) but not to worry I will cover the events to come soon my little ponies as the fun has just been doubled. (Okay bad pun)

Point is everything is about to get strange and this is where thing are going to get slow, as you know their flying tank is gone and they are now SOL since they have lost a member and have another crippled.

Should be interesting for me to write how this will turn out and I hope it is at least half interesting for you to read it as these guys are about to go way off the beaten path!