I launch the marble chunk at the lead gryphon which shatters against his skull, causing him to wobble around disorientated. The other gryphons roar out in anger and charge at me, I cast three cold elements and spray them with ice, their movements are hardly effected and they keep running. One of them reaches me while the others are confronted by the guards, he slashes at me with his right talon and leaves three long tears in my chest-plate.

'Oh shit! Those are sharp!' I think to myself and channel an arcane and fire element into my sword and slash at the gryphon, I leave a decent gash in his right upper arm, but the elements barely even leave a mark, just a few blisters from the arcane element and singed fur from the fire, Celestia wasn't kidding about them being magic resistant.

He backs off and I quickly cast a stone armour spell with a shield element and two earth elements, the polished white marble breaks away from the floor and overlaps my steel armour making me grunt from the extra weight.

The gryphon swings again and I swing my sword at his talon, sparks fly as my blade and his razor sharp claws scrape against each other. 'What the hell? Are they made of metal or something?' I think to myself. Screams echo throughout the Ball Room as the guests try to get away through the back door to the Gardens. The minotaurs, zebra shaman and the cervine are protecting them as they evacuate.

I channel three more earth elements and slam a marble chunk into the gryphons face, they may be magic resistant, but that doesn't mean they can take a lot of physical abuse.

The gryphon falls to the floor clutching his face and thrashes out with his hind legs. Celestia and Luna are now standing in very polished gold and silver coloured armour, Celestia has a large flamberge greatsword that's actually on fire while Luna has a two-handed scythe with a crescent moon blade that's emitting a cold mist from it.

I spot a guard getting his hand sliced off by another gryphon and I cast an earth element spell, this time I take five seconds to charge it up and aim the marble chunk at the gryphon's head. Once I've poured enough mana into the spell, I release the chunk and it goes soaring like a cannonball into the gryphon's temple, I'm rewarded with a sickening crunch as the side of his head caves in and he tumbles into a wall.

The gryphon I knocked over has gotten back up and swipes the side of my head. "AARRRGGHH!" I yell in pain as the marble protecting my head shatters and I go tumbling to the floor, the rest of my stone armour falls off as I lose my focus.

---

---

I blast the gryphon my sister and I are fighting away with a surge of magic, only for it to get back up. 'Sister, we do not remember the gryphons being this resistant to our magic!' I tell Tia.

'You're right, but what could have caused them to get this strong?' she wonders in reply.

"AARRRGGHH!" I look towards the cry of pain and see Adrian limp on the floor.

"ADRIAN!" I yell in fear for him. I raise my scythe above my head and throw the blade at the gryphon looming over Adrian, it impales his right shoulder, cutting through his wing joint and severing the wing off. I then use my telekinesis to pull as hard as I can with all my anger and the blade rips through his back leaving a long gaping wound in its place. I then pull the scythe out with a tug of magic and catch my weapon.

I run over to Adrian where my sister stands guard over us. "Adrian? Adrian are thou alright?.. Please answer us!" I ask him as tears fall from my face.

He groans and turns his head to face me. "Luna?" he asks in barely a whisper.

"Yes, tis us, heal thyself whilst thou can," I beg him. He slowly lifts his left hand to his head and I see two green orbs hover around it.

After a few seconds, he groans and sits up. "Well, that hurt..." he says and rolls his neck.

---

---

Luna hugs me tightly and I hug her back. "I'm alright now, just got a headache," I tell her. I see ten guards swarm one of the two gryphons left and impale him with their spears. Surprisingly, the gryphon roars out in rage and swipes his right talon in an arc, decapitating three of the guards before succumbing to his own wounds.

I watch as Celestia flies up with her sword at the ready and while the last gryphon is being distracted by the remaining guards, she dives down while spinning. With a cry of rage, her blade shines brightly and connects with the back of his neck, cleanly cutting through with a light hissing sound, her blade then impacts the floor leaving a small crater.

The gryphon backs away slowly with an expression of surprise, his head then slowly slides down and falls off, there's no blood as the wound was cauterised by Celestia's molten blade.

The guards surround us as we wait for anything else. After a few minutes of silence, everyone relaxes, a few of the guards are saluting to their fallen friends before picking up their corpses and carrying them out. I stand back up, collect my stave, sheath my sword, and lightly shake my head. That bloody gryphon really let me have it.

"Did they really think they could just invade Canterlot with only four of them?" I ask Luna.

"No, tis how gryphons send a message, they select warriors who are ready to die fighting after said message is delivered," she tells me.

Suiciders? If not for the carnage they caused, I'd be impressed at their level of commitment.

"So I take it this means war?" I ask.

Luna looks grim. "Yes, if they want to continue treating us like prey... then we'll just have to become the hunters," she replies.

I smirk. "Well, since I am now your Knight," I say and kneel before her. "My blade is yours to command." I tell her and look at her with a grin.

She giggles slightly. "We thank thee, Sir Knight." Her smile fades as she looks around. "It will take awhile to clean up this mess," she says.

I look at the large chunks of missing marble from the floor. "Yeah, sorry about the potholes in the floor," I tell her.

"Worry not, it was the only effective means thou had to fight with, a simple spell will repair the damage," she replies.

I watch as the corpses are taken away. "It's times like this that I wish I knew the revival spell," I say to myself.

Luna gasps and looks at me. "Thou can revive the dead!?" she yells in surprise and slight fear, others also look at me with shocked or surprised expressions.

I sadly shake my head. "If your thinking of raising them as undead, then no. The revival spell will heal the body's wounds and return their soul to their body, but as I am now, there's no chance. It's one of the highest level spells there is, it takes a lot of concentration and a lot more mana than I have to perform it," I tell her.

Some of the guards looked disappointed at that and went back to clearing the room, Celestia walks over to us after giving her orders to the remaining guards.

I yawn, feeling tired, those last two weeks training hard have really helped my mana pool increase, I would have passed out again if not for it.

"So what do we do now?" I ask as Celestia repairs the damage to my armour.

"Thou shalt go to bed where thou will rest thyself," Luna tells me.

"But what if more return?" I ask her.

"Then we shall deal with them, thou art of no use to anypony if thee art exhausted," she replies.

I sigh in defeat and nodded.

---

---

We watch Adrian head out of the Throne Room towards the Living Quarters of the Castle.

"How will we respond to this?" Luna asks me.

"I gave them a peaceful way of co-existing, but this attack has made that offer null and void, they harmed our ponies in front of us. We march to war," I reply with anger in my tone. "Once the Throne Room has been cleaned, we'll gather the Captains and plan a counter attack," I tell her.

"Very well," she says and we go about cleaning and repairing the rest of the Throne Room.

---

---

I make my way to Luna's room and run into Twilight and her friends. "Adrian!" Rainbow says spotting me. "Dude! You were so badass!.. Until you got decked that is," she says.

"Rainbow! He could have died!" Twilight admonishes her.

"Sorry," Rainbow says with her ears folded back.

"It's fine, I'm alive and the Gryphons aren't," I tell her.

Twilight then turns to me. "So what are you doing now?" she asks me.

"I was about to get some rest, why?" I reply.

"Well, I was wondering if you would like to join us at Doughnut Joe's," she says and my stomach answers for me. "I take that as a yes then?" she asks with a cheeky smile.

I chuckle and the others giggle. "I guess I could join you for awhile," I reply.

We head out of the Castle and into the city where a few civilians are still out, not surprising with the attack and how late it is. We reach a small shop with doughnuts lining the window.

I open the door for the others and they all thank me. "Why can't all stallions be as chivalrous as you? If you weren't already with Princess Luna, I would have taken you for myself," Rarity says. I chuckle nervously.

I follow in behind them and we all sit at a table, I see Spike sitting at the bar like counter. "Spike? What are you doing here?" Twilight asks him.

Spike turns around with a surprised expression before noticing it's Twilight. "Well, after you all ditched me to do what you all wanted, I wondered around for about ten minutes, got bored and then left. Went to the arcade for a few hours, then came here," he replies.

"What's an arcade?" I ask.

Spike gives me a 'you serious? look. "It's a place where you can play games for a few bits," Rainbow tells me.

"Oh, like a carnival?"

"Not exactly, but close enough," Spike says.

"Well well, if it isn't Twilight Sparkle! Been a while since you were last here," a unicorn man walking in from a door behind the counter says.

"Hello, Joe. It has been a while hasn't it? I've just recently moved to Ponyville to continue my studies," she replies.

"So what can I get for you?" he asks.

Twilight and the others all order a variety of different doughnuts and drinks, I get two iced chocolate doughnuts and a glass of water.

"So, how did your nights go?" Spike asks.

The girls all groaned and tell him their experiences. Applejack tried selling her apple products but no one was interested. Rarity was subjected to that which is called Blueblood and treated as his personal servant rather than a date, that got Spike to growl angrily. Rainbow tried to get the Wonderbolts attention but failed over and over as the press swarmed them. Fluttershy tried to befriend the Gardens animals but they kept running from her. Pinkie wanted to liven up the party and it backfired badly and Twilight just wanted to spend time with Celestia, only to be pushed away by the other guests.

Then I tell him about the gryphon attack minus the gory details, Spike's just glad none of us were hurt.

Spike chuckles. "Sounds like you all had a worse time than I did."

"You can say that again... my head is still throbbing from the hit I took," I say and rub the left side of my head.

"That did look pretty nasty," Twilight says.

"Though the Princesses were soooo cool! I didn't know they could fight like that!" Rainbow says.

"Neither did I," Twilight replies with a frown in thought.

We finished off our meals and I bid them goodnight. I walk down the street back towards the Castle where people move out of my way, either from fear or respect from the news of the fight that no doubt got out with all the journalists that were there.

I make it back without any trouble and head up to Luna's room. I strip out of my armour and take a shower, I put on a clean pair of underwear and trousers and slip under the bed's covers, a few minutes later Luna walks in and also showers. She puts on her nightgown and cuddles up to me with an exhausted sigh.

"Tough night?" I say teasingly.

"Thou hast no idea," she replies with a giggle, then sadly frowns. "Don't scare us like that again..." she tells me.

"I'll try, but I can't promise you that," I reply.

"Then thou leaves us no choice, starting tomorrow, we shall be training thee personally," she says.

Next Chapter: Chapter 16: Training Part 1 Estimated time remaining: 19 Hours, 2 Minutes