"You dare strike your queen!"

The words echoed through the empty throne-room of the Everfree Castle, their only accompaniment being the sound of a violent energy discharge and a pained grunt, followed shortly after by the sound of stones collapsing to the ground.
“Be grateful, you foal. Did I not have business to attend to, your death would have been long in coming...” the same haughty voice from earlier spat out at the crumbled pillar, followed by the solid clop of hooves-on-stone and then silence as the owner of the voice presumably left.
Hours later, sound once again echoed off of the halls, this time in the form of several grunts and pained groans, followed by the sounds of shifting stone; from beneath the rubble that was once a decorative pillar, a charcoal-grey unicorn pulled himself out into the moon-lit throne room.

With a particularly pained heave, the unicorn hauled himself upright and leaned into one of the walls as he took stock of himself and his surroundings. What little fur could be seen beneath his armaments was a deep charcoal grey; most of his body, his cutie mark included, was covered by heavily-scuffed plate armor, somewhat similar to what the royal guards wore, though it differed in that it covered nearly his entire body and had an empty sword-sheath hanging off the right side of the armor. Both of his sides were covered, as well as his underbelly; in addition, he had a pair of steel slippers that came up from his hoof to just below his knees. Much of his armor was scratched or dented -particularly on the right side where it looked like it had been caved in- and his helm was nowhere to be found, letting his mane -blue with both light and dark-blue streaks- hang free. Pressing hard against the caved-in side of his armor with a hoof, the unicorn took a sharp breath, his eyes narrowing in pain.

“Ribs are busted up...armor’s cracked also...” the unicorn muttered to himself as his deep blue eyes roamed around the room.
It was the throne-room of the Everfree Castle where the final confrontation between Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon had taken place, though it appeared to have been abandoned for some time. The walls were coated with thick layers of dirt and grime and the plant-life of the Everfree Forest seemed to have reclaimed most of the room by this point. “The hell?” The unicorn glanced around the decrepit room a second time. While he could recall some damage from the dueling alicorns, it sure as hell wasn’t this bad. It was clearly the same place from his memory just…older? “Where in the blazes have I en-” The unicorn fell silent as his ears twitched.
At first, there was only silence, but after a moment the soft clop of hooves-on-dirt could heard. There were at least five ponies, possibly more, if the unicorn’s ears were to be trusted.

As silently as he could, the unicorn limped into the shadows, only now noticing the splitting pain in his rear-right fetlock over the pain pretty much everywhere else. With a silent swear, he hid in the shadows and waited, hoping his presence would go unnoticed by the new arrivals.
The unicorn could make out six ponies - two earth ponies, two pegasi, and two unicorns, with his pain-blurred vision; it was too many to fight in his condition, should they be hostiles. As the six ponies approached the raised platform in the center of the room, the orange one spoke.
"Whoa…” she trailed off for a brief moment. “Come on, Twilight. Isn’t this what you’ been waitin’ for?” She had a thick southern accent and seemed to be addressing the purple unicorn.

“The Elements of Harmony…” Twilight began, seemingly in awe. “We found them!”

Both of the pegasus ponies flew up to the raised platform and began to lower the Elements down.

“Careful, careful…” Twilight advised from the ground.

The charcoal unicorn tuned the six ponies out, focusing on the crushing pains lancing through his side; he could feel his ribs pressing up against something he was pretty sure they shouldn’t be and had the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. Clenching his jaw as tightly as he could, he forced the blood back down his throat and glanced back to the Elements of Harmony, his eyes widening. While he had been focused on staying silent and undiscovered, five of the ponies had left the throne-room, leaving the purple unicorn alone with the elements. This wouldn’t be cause for alarm if not for the fact that a whirlwind of dark mist was circling around the elements while the unicorn had her eyes closed in concentration. “Open your eyes, you damned fool!” he yelled at Twilight, still hidden in the shadows.

“Ah!” Twilight shot upright and stumbled back, only now noticing the whirlwind of dark energies.

“Twilight!” The collective voices of the other ponies could be heard just outside the throne room.

“The Elements!” Twilight exclaimed, followed by her doing the stupidest thing possible -- jumping into the whirlwind of darkness and very likely death.

“Oh for buck’s sake…” The unicorn rushed to where Twilight had been teleported from and into plain sight of five very colorful ponies.
“What the hay did you do to Twilight?!” The blue pegasus shouted as she dive-bombed him.

Is she stupid? The question crossed his mind for a brief moment, before he concluded that yes, she probably was stupid. While it had certainly seen better days, his armor still marked him quite clearly as a member of the royal guard...was the royal guard still a thing? He frowned, just realizing that it very well might not be in this...world? Time? He wasn’t sure anymore, and it was starting to frustrate him.

Clenching his jaw in frustration, completely ignoring Rainbow Dash, who was rapidly closing in on him. In a flash, he teleported, following the trail of energies left behind by Nightmare Moon. Regardless of what was going on and where he was, she was trouble, as well as something he recognized.

Her intended target having vanished, Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she face-planted the stone floor with a particularly comical sounding crunch.

“Rainbow, are you okay?” The orange pony asked, moving to help Rainbow Dash off of the ground.

“Look!” The white unicorn pointed a hoof out of a nearby window at a tower, where the flash of teleportation could be seen.

“Gods damnit…” The unicorn groaned as he forced himself upright. His magic had been more drained than he realized and he had suffered a magical burnout with his sudden teleportation, resulting in an immediate headache-from-hell, and the sudden inability to use magic. Glancing around the room, he saw Nightmare Moon charging up a spell to launch at the purple unicorn who was hunched down over the Elements of Harmony.

“I’m not paid enough for this...” The charcoal-coated unicorn muttered and took off as fast as his injured body would allow him, racing towards Nightmare Moon in what he hoped was a great sprint but in reality was more like a broken-ass gallop “A stupid whorse says what!” he yelled out as he closed in on the alicorn of darkness.

“What?” Nightmare Moon turned around, the sheer stupidity of the statement having distracted her for a brief moment.
“Case in point!” he replied as he threw his body around and bucked the alicorn as hard as he could.

As his hindhooves connected with Nightmare Moon’s side, he felt something in his right hind-leg snap, followed immediately by the pain intensifying several times over. He guessed he had completely broken what was previously a fracture; totally worth it, he grinned inwardly to himself as he saw his results. Nightmare Moon, having had minimal time to brace herself against the surprise attack, had been thrown off of her feet and a short distance away, crashing into a nearby wall. “Hope you have a plan, purple!” He yelled out as the alicorn climbed back to her feet.

“But...where’s the sixth Element?” Twilight turned back around to face Nightmare Moon, crestfallen that her plan had failed. What she saw, surprised her. A unicorn -similar to her brother in appearance, with the exception of the coat- was standing -if you could call him swaying back and forth lazily standing- on three legs, across from Nightmare Moon, who was climbing to her feet.

“No sixth Element, huh?” the unicorn questioned almost casually “Well, buck.” As he fell silent, the alicorn began to cackle madly.

“You little foals! Thinking you could defeat me!” she stalked towards the grey unicorn, a cruel grin on her face.

“You have failed! You will never see your precious princess again, and the night shall last forever! But before that, I’m going to enjoy myself…”

As she fell, magic wrapped itself around the unicorn that had bucked her, causing her cruel grin to grow wider.

“Ya’ know, your laugh is hilarious…sounds like something out of a foal’s tale...kinda cute ac-” He started only to be silence by a scream, as it ripped itself from the his throat; he was fairly certain that hind-legs weren't supposed to bend three ways at once.

Over the next few moments, the unicorn’s vision faded in and out of black, courtesy of the alicorn swinging him back and forth across the room like a rag-doll, occasionally slamming him into the walls and floor.

This was the first time he had ever found himself wishing his armor wasn’t enchanted; in the short Nightmare War, Nightmare Moon and her followers employed heavy-duty sleeping spells wherever they could, executing the soldiers that fell asleep. In response, their armor had been enchanted to prevent a pony from falling asleep -or unconscious- so long as the armor held.

His pain was all he could focus on, with the exception of the walls and floor; they repeatedly rushed up to meet him for some reason. It was only when he fell to the ground, free of her magical hold that he realized something had happened. Craning his neck as far as he could, he saw the blurry image of the purple unicorn -Twilight, he believed- rushing over to him.

“Don’t move! We’ll get you to the hospital soon!” Twilight exclaimed, a teary expression on her face.

“Magic Barrier, is that you?” Princess Celestia suddenly rushed over, joined by Princess Luna and the five ponies from earlier.

“Your majesties…” The unicorn, now identified as Magic Barrier began, “I quit.”

Author's Notes:

Well, this is it...Chapter 1 of my first-ever story. I'm not particularly hopeful for it, but what will happen, will happen. No cover-art yet because I am lazy and not really sure what to put there...will get to it as soon as possible. Also, I am aware that I desperately need to learn how to properly space paragraphs and the sort. I promise to fix my wall-of-text style as soon as I understand how.

Thanks to:
Jack, for pushing me to do this story and helping me sketch out ideas and damn near co-writing the first few chapters.
Nopony_Important, who proofread for me and essentially made this readable.
DerRotSpassvogel for heavy-duty editing.
Izanagi for equally heavy-duty editing.

Not much to say other than thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, and I'll have the second chapter out as soon as possible.

Oh and constructive criticism would be immensely appreciated.