In the middle of the empty deserts of Southern Equestria, the moon glows bright through the thinner layer of smog upon a sandy plateau, with a grey pegasus in gold and purple armour looking to the cold radiant light. Hours seem to pass as the single stallion is isolated from any life and is only companied with his thoughts. He looks down from the plateau face and sees the jaggy bottom, several stories down.

“I know that feeling…” A shallow and raspy voice speaks from behind Borris. The pegasus looks back to see a pony, covered head to hoof in a black cowpony hat, black vest, black leggings, and black boots, making it impossible to see what lies beneath all of that clothing. “You feel as if you have screwed everything up, that you’ve got nothing to live for.”

“Who are you?” The major replies sternly, but a hint of nervousness gets mixed in with the delivery of the question, “And do you know who I am?”

“You might know me, and I might know you, legends, fables, stories are the beginning of knowing of each other.”

“What’s your story?”

“Me,” the disguised stallion walks to Borris’ side and looks to the east, “my story is one of absolution. I did some bad things a long time ago, but after seeing the light, I’m now on a spiritual journey.”

“What is it? How does it involve you walking around this place and creeping up on ponies?”

“Let’s just say that I’m… linked, to this land. My quest is to help those down on their luck, to give them a helping hoof to their hooves. And right now, it seems like you need a helping hoof.”

“No I don’t I’m too far deep for any kind of help. I’ve killed a lot of innocent ponies, family and children included, I’ve failed at protecting my country and others from a tyrannical alicorn, and I’ve lost my special somepony. There’s no hope for me.” A minute of silence fades in as the two ponies stare through the smoggy horizon at the only stars viewable against the deep blue sky.

“Ever heard the legend of the Ghost Pony?”

“Yeah, real original name that one,”

“It was a long time ago, naming wasn’t really a thing around these parts. The reason I bring this is because Blaze also thought the same thing as you are right now. From the moment that tornado scorched away everything he had to gain in his life; he thought that there was no point to living, that he would have been better off not existing at all. However, after what seemed to be an eternal suffering, his chance at redemption came before him. And to this day, they say he still roams this land, fulfilling his destiny.”

“That’s just an old pony tale,”

“Heh, you’d be surprised how true some of these tales are. And sometimes, history has those little moments where it repeats itself.”

“How so?”

“You may not be able to return the lives of the ponies you’ve taken, nor protect yours or others’ countries, nor even repair the relationship between you and your special somepony,”

“Yeah, way to hammer it in there buddy,”

“But there is a chance of something, unexpected to happen, an option that you did not see coming. Maybe a lone stranger, appearing from nowhere, inspiring you to go back and try to help those in need right now, instead of your own self and past actions.”

“It’s no use; they’ll all be dead in an hour or two.”

“Maybe, maybe,”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe that can happen, or,”

“Or what?”

“Something, unexpected happens…” The moment those words pierce Borris’ long black mane and enter his ears, something inside him sparked. A stiff face, stronger than solid granite, becomes printed on the warrior’s face. “Has fate given you a second chance my friend?”

“Yes it has, and I’m gonna take it.”

“Go then, fly!” Borris leaps off the cliff, opening his wings and taking flight to the north as the morning beams of sunlight light his path against the neighboring mountains. “May the spirit of Blaze Eldur Rider be with you. Borris looks back to see that the mysterious pony is gone, but notices a small flaming figure rapidly charging into the eastern horizon as the red sun exposes itself. A massive tailwind then hits the pegasus and the air becomes hard as it hits his face as his speed skyrockets, zipping over hundreds of kilometers of desert, plains, and forest. He flies over a small plain between the RAEM and MorksVille and sees two large masses of ponies slowly marching towards each other. Their synchronized stomping against the hard ground echoes up all the way to Borris.

“The battle’s already started?!” He squints towards the Mork side and sees the first three rows of unicorn Morks charging their horns and aiming directly at the oncoming mares. He then looks to the RAEM side to see hundreds of mares, each armed in silver, gold, and purple armour. Fear is tingling through each and every single one of them as they look to the oncoming barrage. The Morks fire, a massive rainbow blanket of all sorts of magic projectiles dart across the field. In a flash, a giant continuous stream of explosions of dirt, smoke, colors, and other debris erupt at the RAEM’s front lines, coating the entire group in smog. The smoke dies down and Borris and the Morks are surprised see a wall of green shields, similar to Midnight’s wings, in front of the mares. The cloaked ponies from the mountains are then seen right behind the shield, carrying a small black box in their mouths, each projecting a shield. The Morks fire again. Only for their projectiles to be absorbed by the hundreds of shields as the resistance begins to run. Borris is caught off his guard by the gigantic Spike robot, which grabs him in his enormous claw. The beast flies into a thundering cloud with Borris is tow and then lifts him to its serrated jaws of teeth. Suddenly, a large metal spear appears out of nowhere and pierces the dragon through the mouth, sealing it shut. Borris is dropped as he makes his down to the surface and sees a house-large crossbow to the north of the resistance. He lands next to it and sees Atlas at the massive trigger and Aaron and a couple of other cloaked ponies pulling the vehicle ahead.

“That was me who made the shot!” The critic boasts, “And they said my cutie mark was a fake,”

“What is all this?”

“Me and Aaron found some unusual ponies in the mountains and got them to help us out. Isn’t that right Aaron?”

“Yep,” the unicorn exhaustingly replies, “the cavalry has arrived!”

“Aaron?!” A pair of distant voices shout, the three look to see Major Jack and Daniel push their way through the fast marching.

“Dan!”

“Aaron!” The yellow unicorn screams before grabbing his brother in open arms, “Why did you come back?”

“Would I be a true Grump brother if I left ya? Just thought I’d give my buddy a savoring moment before the finale.

“Well, it certainly has made a huge impact on our last stand.”

“Of my Celestia…” Jack exclaims, “This is huge!”

“Are those giant bellows rolling towards us?”

“Yes,” Aaron gleefully replies, “I’ll go inside the RAEM and we’ll actually see if the spray works, you help Atlas with the crossbow!”

“Hey Aaron,”

“What?”

“Thanks for coming back to me…” Aaron then releases the rope he was pulling and runs behind the stunned Earth Pony and unicorn towards the barn. Atlas then screams and points at the large dragon descending from the sky,

“Giant bogey at twelve o’ clock, Uni-bro, you good at climbing?”

“Kinda,”

“Good, load the next bolt, grab a blade, and hop on the bolt.”

“What?!”

“Don’t question me, do it!”

“Okay…” The unicorn picks up one of the 5-meter metal rods from two cloaked ponies carrying them behind the crossbow and loads it. He then picks up a long sword sticking from the ground at the front lines and dashes back to Atlas. In a quick succession of bounds, Daniel leaps to the tip of the bolt. Atlas shoves the massive weapon with all of his might, aiming it directly at the approaching beast of the air.

“Fire in the hole!”

“Sir,” Jack nervously asks, “are you sure this is safe?”

“No, that’s why I’m having him do it. Outgoing!”

“Wait!” The panicking stallion shrieks, clinging to the arrow with all of his might. Atlas ignores the shrill and bucks the back of the tiller, causing a large whipping sound to rattle the entire device. He looks back to see the weapon has fired and that Daniel is nowhere to be seen.

“I’d hate to brag, but I love to brag. Ha!” Back at the barn, Aaron is levitating the large cauldron of Anti-Mork Spray out of the entrance and running back to his friend. However, a distant scream of terror is picked up by his ears,

“AHHH!” Aaron looks up to see the large arrow sailing through the sky with a tiny yellow speck on the front of it.

“Daniel?” He asks to himself, squinting his eyes.

“Hey bro!”

“Yep, definitely him…”

“AHHH!” The flying rod jabs onto the Spike Mork’s huge right wing, flinging the small unicorn onto the scaly sheet metal of the flat surface of the wing. Still holding the blade with his magic, Dan slowly begins his way to the main body. Wind smashing into his side, nearly causing him to slip off of the smooth black armour, but the pony’s old and cracked hooves provide just enough friction to keep him set onto the wing. A muffled roar rattles throughout the body of the beast as the dragon begins to tilt due to the damage of his wings. “No, no, no, no, no, nooo!” Daniel clings to a loose piece of metal and holds on as the flying suit of armour twirls for two full rotations before returning to its normal objective of ramming the resistance from above. “Oh, I think I’m gonna barf…” The unicorn then makes his way up to the top of the head, but before he can stab the monster right above the head, the beast’s head begins to shake violently. “No, not the shakies, anything but the shaky-shakes,” Now clinging to the large spike protruding from the back of the head, Daniel begins to feel as if all feeling has left his body. “Can’t, hold on, much, longer,” A loud thud hits the bottom of the metal mouth and Daniel hears the voice of Borris shouting,

“You got this Daniel Grump, do it!” Now regaining his hoofing, the stallion listens to his commander’s orders and sets the sword in position. He sets his hooves on the hilt and in one mighty push, the blade stabs cleanly through. A loud whirring on electricity and magic sputter throughout the behemoth as its angle levels, causing the dragon to beelining towards the hill a kilometer behind the large crossbow. Daniel jumps from the head and is caught by Borris with a swift mid-air swoop and witness as the metal monstrosity crashes into the hill, resulting in a blinding explosion. As the flaming flash of light dies down, the duo of stallions see a large cloud of smoke where the hill used to be.

“Wow, it looks like a giant mushroom, if it was made of dust, smoke, and absolute destruction.”

“Now that… was awesome.” The two float back down to the ground with Atlas, Jack, Aaron loading two giant bellows, each half as large as the crossbow, with the purple liquid being poured into the back of the massive mechanical vehicles.

“The griffon has landed, I repeat, the griffon has landed!”

“Good job bro,” Aaron replies, “the shields are about to be lowered, help me fire on when Boris gives the signal.”

“Which?”

“Gruncle Boris you dope.”

“Oh.”

“Get ready!” The unicorn brothers push the bellows between the square groups of mares to the front lines as Boris teleports right between the middle cloaked ponies. He shouts,

“Now! Lower the shields! Fire!” The green shields shrink into oblivion as a rainbow barrage of magic this time is fired from the RAEM at the Morks a couple of tens of meters away. The two large bellows are squeezed by Aaron and Daniel, magic and liquid spewing all over the Morks. A large cloud of smoke envelopes the Morks with confused yells and commands rocketing from one end of the explosion to the other. “Charge!” Soon, hundreds of mares, magic firing, armour clanging, and cheers of fury ring throughout the plain as they part their way through the smoke and clash with the Morks. Clanging, smashing, bashing, screams, triumphant cheers, jeering grunts, battle cries, chaos, punching, kicking, bucking, stabbing, jabbing, throwing, all clashing at once for minutes on the battlefield. No pony, not even the Morks, knew at this moment who would truly win, it was brothers against sisters, husbands against wives, friends against friends. The fate of Equestria, their and Twilight’s, and others was inconclusive in these minutes of war. Time was at a standstill, yet at the same time, flashing past as hooves, ponies, Morks, armour, and magic flew. Amongst the chaos, Borris comes across a large red stallion, bucking directly into the face of a Mork, knocking his helmet off.

“Big Mac!” The grey pegasus cheers, “Do you know where Rainbow Dash is, I need to see her?”

“Nope.” The Earth Pony replies, slightly astonished at the fact he actually knocked off a Mork helmet. “It seems however, that that Anti-Mork Spray those Grump Brothers were talking about worked.” He looks to see the brown Mork that had his helmet knocked off, panicking in confusion of what’s going on. “Are you okay?”

“Not sure,” the stallion sputters frantically, “one moment, I was having a lovely picnic with my friend, and then this! And why does it smell terrible, it feels like I’m in an all-mare teenager slumber party!”

“Don’t worry buddy,” Borris replies, “just get out of here and hide in the barn.”

“Okay.” Borris looks down at the fallen helmet and picks it up with his mouth, so as for no pony to trip on it. He then shoves, ducks, and dodges his away out of the swirling collection of battle and makes it out to the open, coming across Gruncle Boris looking towards the castle. The major drops the helmet and joins to the old unicorn’s side “Hey buddy, know where Rainbow Dash is? I need to set some things straight”

“She left to join her friends to help rescue Twilight from Midnight’s palace, I’m staying here to help the front lines. Just here for a quick breather-”

“I’ve gotta help her!”

“Don’t, it’s a covert mission, you’ll get caught by Morks if you set one hoof in Canterlot.”

“I know that castle better than anypony that’s not been a Mork, they’ll surely get caught if I don’t help them.”

“Well you better think of a way of getting in there without the Morks seeing you…” Slowly, Borris turns his head to the empty Mork helmet on the ground behind him.

“It’s going to be risky, but I’m taking the chance.” The stallion slowly puts on the helmet dowsed with the spray. “Gah, smells awful in here…”

“Are you sure you won’t turn back into a Mork?”

“The spray should stick to this thing for long enough for me to help the others infiltrate security. Wish me luck!” With that said, the pegasus leaps off and takes flight towards Midnight’s castle.

“Good luck… best friend.” A mere couple of minutes pass before Borris finds himself soaring above the abandoned residential area of Canterlot. He glances through the red visor and odor and sees a group of eleven mares and a baby dragon at the side entrance of Midnight’s castle, being held up by a unicorn Mork.

You call that covert? Holy smokes, this stinks! He swoops down in between the group and the Mork guarding the door.

“Borris?” Rainbow Dash curiously asks right behind the sudden appearance of the incognito stallion.

“Excuse me sir, I have apprehended the following ponies to be sealed in the dungeon. I was held up by the biological requirement to empty my bowels.” The Mork stares deep into Borris’ visor with a stern look on his mouth, examining the unusually dressed pony, causing more and more tension and paranoia to build up inside him and the two Rarities, two Applejacks, two Pinkie Pies, two Fluttershies, Spike, Raindrop, and Rainbow Dash…